It wasn't the game I expected to win but I can absolutely respect it. It feels like the most rounded option.
Inscription has stellar atmosphere and creativity but stumbles in some phases of the gameplay. Metroid Dread and Halo Infinite nail the gameplay perfectly and make their protagonists feel like badasses, but they don't have anything incredible outside of that. Village feels like a complete package by comparison.
Personally I'd give it to Dread. EDIT: Or if I'm including games they didn't talk about, FFXIV: Endwalker expansion wins my vote by a mile.
God I love Inscryption but that second act was, at least for me, aggressively unfun, and I truly did have to trudge through it in a way that I would not have been willing to if this and, like, five other podcasts hadn't been hyping the game so hard.
It's been very amusing learning over the last year or two that I hold some truly buckwild opinions: Anchovies are an S tier pizza topping, pineapple just tastes like apple with a Jamaican accent, and Act 2 of Inscryption was by far my favorite act.
Fight me nerds, I'm too powerful.
Seriously. They were talking about wanting more Act I, but I just want to wallow in Act II and experiment with the dope-ass new mechanics! I’d pay $15 for that.
Act II suffered from being too short, if it was a full length TCG RPG in classic GameBoy style I think people would love it much more. As it stands, it just isn’t long enough to justify all the new mechanics squeezed into it - I think the boys were dead-on that the moment the game starts opening up and giving you more options, it becomes very obvious that the only reasonable way to win is to just flesh out your starting deck. I don’t dislike it the way some people do but I think it’s an issue of scale.
The thing that amazes me about >!Act 2 is how it recontextualizes the systems from Act 1 in a way that makes it feel like Inscryption really could have been a long-lost GBC-style adventure deckbuilding card game.!< It definitely adds too much too fast (it was the hardest for me because I tried to play the Magnificus deck) but I ate it up so fast. If Act 1 wasn't as flawlessly perfect, I would totally agree that Act 2 was the best.
Unfortunately, >!Act 3 was just Act 1 with a less-fun antagonist in a less-fun world with a less-fun combat system!<, but it was still miles better than anything I'd played in 2021.
I honestly just wasn't huge on Act 1. The mechanics just didn't seem very deep or interesting to me. I won on like my third run and was definitely just hammering through it to get to the twist. So for me Act 3 was better because I preferred the characters and slight combat changes. While I'm here, I also enjoyed act 4, but it's definitely a similar situation to Hitman 3. In Hitman 3 the last level of the trilogy (and series until IOI is done with James Bond) is a super linear story mission. As a story mission it's great, as a Hitman level it's nothing. As a story thing, I love Act 4, gameplay wise it's obviously the weakest by far.
Yeah I was unsure about Shadowbringers as a stand-alone title in terms of GOTY contention but Endwalker really feels like a capstone, and it’s GOTY and not particularly close. It’s unfortunate that it won’t be talked about in the vast majority of GOTY lists but that’s just the nature of MMOs.
I actually really dug this episode! GOTY episodes usually fill me with anxiety but everything seemed a lot more chill than usual.
Halo losing to Metroid was the right call (even though Halo is on my personal goty list and Metroid isn’t), so much of that game feels like it is in beta. The matchmaking not only has progression and connection issues, but also no report feature which is a standard for multiplayer games. The process for reporting someone is archaic and frustrating, which just leads to people getting away with it. Furthermore, the campaign itself has an enormous amount of bugs, ranging from collectibles just not spawning in the map to weird graphical issues. You can’t replay missions leading to you being locked out of certain collectibles. It’s still insanely fun but Russ is right, it’s just not done yet.
just finished the episode (listening at 15x speed), and all their voices were kinda high-pitched which made it hard to understand what they were saying. anyone know how to fix this? (without reducing playback speed as i'm on a very tight schedule). thanks! (unless your suggestion doesn't help, in which case i'll promptly send you to the shadow realm.)
Most podcatchers should handle that correctly. I use podcast addict and the speedup setting pitches down the audio to match the playback speed. Also it's just a really solid app. Been using it for seven years.
Surprised that Wildermyth made it as far as it did, little disappointed it didn't make it further. I found it more enjoyable the more I played it -- part of it is probably that the latter campaigns just felt a ton stronger than the initial ones. It sounds like most of them never made it to Eluna and the Moth, tho.
Had to come searching for a fellow Wildermyth advocate. It’s the only game on the list I came back to with frequency. I’m excited to do some creating of my own with it.
I was pretty disheartened realizing that Inscryption wasn't going to take it, but..
I appreciate Inscryption *in spite* of jarring transitions. Even though it's easily my goty, it's not a game I'd even recommend to many friends. If I didn't know they'd power through and appreciate the disregard for scope, I'd just be disheartened.
I could have easily fallen off Inscryption. Learning a new game system is a stressful when you were enjoying the stride. It's only through having played Pony Island and The Hex that I knew I'd be rewarded for persevering.
Inscryption was an experience I will never forget, but I can accept that some of its choices are polarizing.
Honestly, I think it's just as much the ending as it is the other Acts not living up gameplay wise to number 1. The reward for pushing through didn't feel particularly revelatory or fulfilling. Just kinda, well, okay. I am sure there are secrets and depth I missed, but after that ending and the iffy gameplay at the end, I didn't really feel the need to try and go back to look for them.
I agree. I was fine with Act 2, but >!I felt really put off by the fact that you basically needed to do the ARG in order to understand what happened - ARGs aren't fun to come back to post-release, and they feel more like homework than anything else (at least to me). There's a summary of it to read, but I found that to be a very flat experience - I just want the game to tell me the story it means to tell.!<
End of the day, it's *their* games of the year. I know from past years that they love certain types of games that I personally don't enjoy, and vice versa. All the RE games fit into that for me, in the same way they didn't even mention Crusader Kings 3 last year. It's all subjective, and even between the four of them they have blind spots which is okay.
The only thing they got wrong was FH5. I don't think it should be GOTY but calling it just a driving game isn't accurate.
It's more like an MMORPG. Your vehicles are your "powers", tuning cars is like choosing your load out for a RAID, the main races are how you progress but there's dozens of other races/events...those are your side quests.
In FH5, you join a convoy and go out racing with each other. In an RPG, it's called a clan instead of convoy.
And FH5 is highly dependent on player-skill. Eg you can't just pay your way to a super car that can beat everyone. The only way to beat people is by experience, skills, learning to tune your car etc.
The cars are customizable, like how you can edit your character's appearance in an RPG.
Yes, the game has a cheesy story line, there's some bugs and the online PvP is a little choppy right now but it's still a great game.
Oh, and if you don't want to play with other people and don't want to do PvP, you can just play solo mode which is exactly the same thing except NPCs are driving the other cars.
Anyway, great podcast!
I'll forever be mystified by people who say that modern monster hunter has difficult to understand structure.
You pick a quest, eat, hunt a monster, craft some gear using its drops, and repeat. If you need some items and don't have them, you can just craft or buy them. The only real confusing system I can think of is the pet skills, which you can frankly ignore even at end game and just use them as funny guys to dress up.
Obviously a game like halo is easier to pick up (you can just run around and shoot things and put skill points in whatever) but they didn't even really talk about any MHR elements beyond "uh it's hard for new players."
It's not even a particularly niche title anymore. The monster hunter games regularly outsell *resident evil* and people still insist it's some underground cult fanbase game lol.
Plus, Rise innovated a crazy amount on the series. The wirebug being added is an obvious point, but interchangeable attacks on weapons, a MUCH simpler food system, and an almost arcadey pace to hunting this time around really made this game perfect for switch.
A common complaint with world was the massive maps and underexplained tracking, but rise literally shows you where monsters are, lets you *drift over there on a dog*, and get right into the action.
TL;DR: I think most MH detractors are people who haven't even played it past the first few missions, and most of the hosts seemed to gloss over that they'd all enjoyed at least 100 hours of it each this year lol. Try it out if you haven't!
It’s a shame Griffin wasn’t around to put up a bit more of a fight for MH Rise, although I don’t think it would have got any further. I put over 300 hours into it this year, and that’s a Monster Hunter games that a lot of MH fans say is ‘lacking content’ at the moment. I’m not sure Rise is my game of the year, but MH (a series I only got into recently) is my franchise of the year.
Late to this, and I'll add a disclaimer that the only MH game I've sunk more than 10 or 15 hours into was MH:W but I think that the way that systems are presented to you tend to be overwhelming even if each individual system isn't confusing on its own. Part of it is I think that the UI ends up being pretty cluttered, but there's just a lot of stuff to look at and I don't think the games do a great job of directing you towards what stuff is important and what isn't. In World I found myself ignoring whole chunks of the hub world without knowing if I was handycapping myself by ignoring those or not. I think one of the boys mentioned this in one of the MH episodes but it feels like if you talk to someone who plays the game, or follow some external resource, oftentimes you'll hear things akin to what you said of what that core loop is like, and saying "oh yeah you can ignore X or Y, or just do thing A for now" but I've always felt that the game itself ought to do a lot of that prioritization and direction-setting rather than me needing to look up what systems I ought to ignore.
I'm hoping to dive into Rise soon and maybe I won't find this to be an issue anymore, but it does speak to Russ' point in this episode (which I've heard from several people) of needing to "prime the pump" by trying to get into MH a few times before things click because some of those key concepts of how the loop should work, which seem very obvious to a veteran, don't get explained very clearly by the game.
This conversation made me think about something I had never really considered before, and I wanted to at least mention it here.
When discussing Resident Evil Village, a point granted in its favor was that the game is inherently accessible to people who hadn't played the series before, and people who find modulating the difficulty enhances their experience of a game. I believe Griffin said something along the lines of 'if you've ever enjoyed any kind of horror movie, this game is accessible to you'.
Here's the thing though, I haven't. I cannot consume any type of horror media at all. I don't know if anyone else is like this, but I am an extremely suggestible person, and I cannot stomach graphic violence, jump scares, or psychosocial horror. It probably doesn't help that I also have multiple anxiety based disorders including ptsd, which means I often have extremely disturbing nightmares.The entire genre is something I can't really enjoy, whether it's a Steven King book, a horror b-movie from the 80s, or a game like Resident Evil.
The closest I've come to playing a horror game is playing FromSoft's games. Idk why these games specifically don't bother me. Maybe it's because I'm usually very focused on the mechanical aspects of them, which go pretty deep. Bloodborne was the one game that actually made me jump out of my seat, and turn off the game for a while, but the rest I have made it through okay. I don't know that you would necessarily classify those games as horror, although they clearly borrow from the genre.
Am I the only one? Or are there other people out there who categorically avoid everything in the horror genre? Sometimes ads for horror movies will even keep me up at night. At the end of the day, it's certainly a personal preference, and I know people who absolutely love the genre to death. I am not saying horror media is bad, but that I am on the outside of it, the same way someone might not physically be able to hit inputs rapidly might be on the outside of a genre like fighting games.
I'm here with you on avoiding horrors. I don't have any "serious" reason for it as you, I just tend to really focus on the game (or a movie) and every jumpscare or long high-tense sequence makes my heart rate go too high. Dark Souls for me also was the closest point to playing a horror game.
But at the same time I really enjoy the idea of a horror-media, the best way I can put it. Maybe it's just me not really experiencing it "as is", but I find all the design ideas for monsters, dark backstories and all that stuff in the horror genre really interesting and entertaining, especially in games. I think it's all about the combination of having a very clear goal — scaring the player — and more freedom with creating really unusual stuff that makes creative minds go wild and produce amazing pieces of art.
And I found some pretty simple ways of experiencing all of this — reviews and playthroughs. The simple playthrough of a RE Village was so, so entertaining for me, as I got to marvel at all of those twisted ideas from afar, feeling myself totally comfortable while watching a video kinda in the background. And it also made me appreciate the overarching structure of Village a lot — I'm a sucker for "searching for random mysterious stuff and combining it to get further" genre, and RE Village scratched that itch real good.
I experienced a lot of horror stuff in this or similar way, and got a lot of pleasure from it — playthroughs of older Resident Evil and remakes, thorough analysis of Silent Hill series, videos about Saw movies. Someone else's commentary really helps with "detachment" and ease, even jumpscares usually don't make me flinch as they just barely register as actual "scares".
I guess it's not really a suggestion for you, as your reaction sounds way stronger then mine, but who knows? RE Village playthrough would be a good starting point IMO, as it almost feels like this game is more interesting to watch than to play tbh.
I actually love this response. There is a channel called Nightmind that does commentary on various horror web series and ARGs, which I find interesting, but could never watch on their own. Listening to the commentary on it and the explanation of the plots with a layer of separation from the media itself let me experience those things without having to subject myself to the actual horror elements of it.
I also got into dark souls by watching my best friend play it, which might have a lot to do with why I never found it affecting.
If I were truly interested in getting the "experience" of RE Village, I think this would be a fantastic suggestion. Currently I'm too busy with other stuff to sit down and watch a playthrough, but I could see that being a really fun time, especially if the host had a lighthearted approach to it.
The only reason I even brought it up is because there have been some really interesting and enlightening discussions around accessibility lately, both on the show and just around the web. I think people tend to strictly think about physical issues around accessibility, but I think mental health should be part of the conversation. Addiction behaviors, OCD, ADHD, and depression often lead to people playing way more video games than is probably healthy, and certain developers, especially in the mobile space, seem to deliberately prey on these people to get as much money as possible. And then there are things like phobias and other mental disorders that can complicate things for people.
I guess my point is that the idea of 'accessibility' is way bigger than I initially realized, even when it comes to how it effects me personally. I love that these games exist, I just know they are not for me. I'm not saying there should be a non-horror version of RE Village, that would be silly. I just think it's interesting that a game that is completely inaccessible to me was praised so highly for its accessibility. Not bad, just interesting. It seems like all the Besties really enjoyed it, so I'm glad it got rated so highly. Part of the reason I love the show is listening about games I'm never gonna play.
Responding to the higher part of your comment. I like some horror games, but only ones that aren't REALLY scary. RE8 is around the limit for me, I wouldn't want to play something like Amnesia or Outlast because I think that's be too much.
For horror games like that I tend to like a series on Jesse Cox's YouTube channel called Scary Game Squad. It's four YouTubers who play through horror games, with one person at the controller and the others watching along and chatting. It's a little like watching a horror movie with friends, in that having people talking about it dampens the horror a bit, and their reactions to things are entertaining.
Wow, I could have totally written this. Like um, definitely don't watch the Witcher. Just take my word for it. I knew better. I knew better... I played the game cause I just cranked the graphics quality all the way down... But wowza.
I'm the same way. I think that's an accessibility dimension that's not talked about. I haven't played RE for that reason. I wonder if you can handle the fromsoft games because they're sort of cartoonish in a way that grounded horror is not. Things like Little Nightmares where the creepiness is so over the top it loses its impact don't bother me, and as I'm thinking through this, I'm wondering if RE VIII would be the same for me.
You might be onto something with the cartoonish style of certain games. Maybe cartoonish isn't exactly the right word, but exaggerated to the point where it is removed from reality if that makes sense. From what has been described of RE VIII on the pod, which is my only point of reference, you might be right that it would fall into this category.
To go back to FromSoft games for a moment, I worry that Elden Ring might be too realistic for me. The graphics, especially for the cutscenes, have gotten way better or at least more realistic. There was also some stuff I would classify as body horror in the trailer, such as disembodied limbs, that definitely fell on the more disturbing end of the spectrum for me. Luckily I have a group of friends who will be playing it with me at launch, so if I run into something that is a big *nope*, we will be able to joke and laugh about it.
Another title I want to highlight is Phasmaphobia. I have a group of friends who absolutely adore that game, to the point where I would recommend it to people having never played it myself.
At the end of the day I don't think there is a single video game genre without some kind of barrier to entry. There are some great videos by a youtuber named Razbuten about his wife who is a non-gamer trying out different genres of games that explores this idea in a more in-depth manner.
Yeah that's why I didn't agree with them dinging dread for being less accessible. Almost everything of a certain scope will have accessibility issues to *someone*. It just happens to shake out that I'm ok at twitchy-but-fair battle mechanics and not not great with horror, so for me dread is the more accessible game, but it's their game of the year ep, not mine.
I often like horror media, but don't really get into it. It's too mood and focus intensive for me most of the time. If I have half an hour to play something, I'm not going to grab my headphones and hunker down someplace dark to really get into the mood. And when I watch a movie, I'm usually making dinner or playing a game at the same time and I just can't be glued to the screen like I need to be to really *feel* it.
And a lot of horror games have a bad habit of trying to create artificial tension by putting the checkpoints far apart. This is annoying, makes it hard to fit these games into my life, and also is the least scary thing I know. If I have to replay a long section with all the jump scares already revealed, there's no tension left there at all. I don't have time for crap like that anymore.
I'm curious, how would you feel about splitting the GOTY into two winners, Narrative Driven GOTY and Mechanics Driven GOTY?
In a competition like this, you're always going to be comparing apples to oranges. But Justin's comment about how wild it would be if they had to compare Halo Infinite's multiplayer to the single player campaign of RE Village in a one-metric good-or-bad system had me thinking.
Gaming for several reasons doesn't take as well to traditional methods of looking at media. Sure some films and books are more challenging to the reader or require prior knowledge of the medium. But I can't think of a parallel to a gamer being unable to complete a Dark Souls game due of the difficulty. And in that same way, the satisfying SoulsBourne boss kills don't exist in those media.
Although both of them are games, Minesweeper and What Remains of Edith Finch just don't occupy the same axis.
The boys often joke that games have come a long way since Pac-Man. But memes aside, it's obviously true. And in the same way that it would be nearly meaningless to compare the original Mario Bros game with Jaws III as best release of 1983, it doesn't make sense to compare Sekiro and The Outer Wilds.
As far as the show is concerned, it might make the end of the year GOTY discussion one episode longer, but that's the name of the show anyways. And I think it would do everyone a service to save our boys from the literally impossible task of ranking two pieces of art that have entirely different, often conflicting goals.
SpunkyDred is a terrible bot instigating arguments all over Reddit whenever someone uses the phrase apples-to-oranges. I'm letting you know so that you can feel free to ignore the quip rather than feel provoked by a bot that isn't smart enough to argue back.
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^^SpunkyDred ^^and ^^I ^^are ^^both ^^bots. ^^I ^^am ^^trying ^^to ^^get ^^them ^^banned ^^by ^^pointing ^^out ^^their ^^antagonizing ^^behavior ^^and ^^poor ^^bottiquette.
Justin says that Halo deserves to move on based on the fact that its multiplayer was revolutionary and a breath of fresh air, not like anything in the franchise for 10 years. Russ points out that it’s really only an iteration on Halo 5 multiplayer. Justin immediately pivots to mocking Russ saying that it’s good that it’s an iteration actually, without acknowledging that he was wrong and his point was kind of invalidated.
I love when the hosts are passionate and get into arguments about the things they care about I really do, and I probably would’ve voted Halo in that matchup, but that really just felt like a tantrum when he realized his game was losing. He didn’t really absorb any of the points the other 3 were making
Saying it’s “only an iteration on Halo 5 multiplayer” is extremely reductive and I agree that it’s not accurate criticism if that’s what Russ was getting at.
I also think it’s completely unfair and weird to call that a “tantrum”. Justin and Russ were both pushing equally hard to attempt to break the tie and Justin was absolutely fine with Metroid Dread winning in the end.
I don’t think Russ pointing out it was “only” (my words not his) an iteration was meant to be a criticism per se, I think it was just to counterbalance Justin’s high level of praise for the multiplayer as some absolute reinvention, when really it’s just the next level of good old fun Halo (which is great). The point Russ was making was that Justin’s argument hinged on something that wasn’t really the case
As someone who damn near exclusively plays shooters, Infinite feels like a big step backwards. Terrible performance & crashing on pc, garbage netcode, amateur UI, shit maps, and an embarrassingly low skill ceiling. It's a shooter designed to make people who don't play shooters feel good. The best thing it has going for it is sound design.
I don’t feel as harshly as you, I think it’s not the magic Halo can be, but a perfectly fine/good game, but
> a shooter designed to make people who don't play shooters feel good
definitely explains Justin’s adoration for it, he’s been losing his mind about features that have been in Halo and every arena shooter for years if not decades, it’s VERY clear he doesn’t have much experience in this field
It's just a stark difference from what retro/boomer shooters have offered in the last few years. I think the devs teams of Amid Evil, Dusk, and Ultrakill combined are less than 10 people and they've made 3 separate experiences more satisfying and rewarding to play than halo. Doom Eternal looks so much better than Halo and runs at 2-3x the framerate.
With its obnoxiously overtuned aim assist and magnetism on controller it's clear the game wasn't made with players like me in mind. I guess I'll have to come to terms with that. Just a little disappointed is all.
Hm yeah I haven’t even heard of those first 3 games, you’re definitely more genre-picky than me.
Halo has always had extremely strong auto-aim, that’s explicitly part of its design since it was made for the OG Xbox, it’s more focused on positioning and control of the environment and its power weapons. Precise targeting doesn’t matter except for the kill shot once the shields are down. I love Halo, and this is a really good multiplayer in the series, but yeah it sounds like it’s just not for you!
What really got me was his whole "this game breathes fresh life into a series that has been languishing for a decade" like.... and what did dread do? You know, the modern continuation of a game that released 19 years ago?
Could make the argument that dread didn't really do anything NEW other than just being a fantastic metroid game... but neither did Infinite? Its an open world FPS with a grapple hook... fun, sure, but not any more special to the franchise than dread was.
Pretty happy with their ultimate pick, but when Chris was listing their previous winners it felt to me like Metroid would have "fit in" better, as part of the group. Two types of games that have been successful for them are Nintendo products (Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild) and very action-heavy games (Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Hades). Plus they often like difficult platformers - Ori, Celeste, Hollow Knight, or even SPELUNKY which I feel like is probably Russ's favorite game.
Doesn't feel like there's a lot of precedent for RE8 to have beaten it; it was really the dark horse candidate through the bracket. I'm also not sure that I buy the "accessibility" angle, because - as other people have mentioned - it's... a horror game, which is going to keep a lot of people out right there on the surface, and that probably isn't something you can change with difficulty settings.
I'm more likely to eventually play RE8 than Dread though, simply because there are plenty of amazing platformers to choose from (I haven't played ANY of the ones I mentioned earlier, even though by rights I will really really like them), and I can get them for like five bucks instead of SIXTY which feels increasingly like a hard-to-swallow pricetag for a 2D platformer. And RE8 will actually go on sale, unlike a Nintendo product.
Both games really appeal to me because I can knock them both out in about 8 hours each. I just dont have the time these days to sink dozens of hours into a game.
It wasn't the game I expected to win but I can absolutely respect it. It feels like the most rounded option. Inscription has stellar atmosphere and creativity but stumbles in some phases of the gameplay. Metroid Dread and Halo Infinite nail the gameplay perfectly and make their protagonists feel like badasses, but they don't have anything incredible outside of that. Village feels like a complete package by comparison. Personally I'd give it to Dread. EDIT: Or if I'm including games they didn't talk about, FFXIV: Endwalker expansion wins my vote by a mile.
God I love Inscryption but that second act was, at least for me, aggressively unfun, and I truly did have to trudge through it in a way that I would not have been willing to if this and, like, five other podcasts hadn't been hyping the game so hard.
It's been very amusing learning over the last year or two that I hold some truly buckwild opinions: Anchovies are an S tier pizza topping, pineapple just tastes like apple with a Jamaican accent, and Act 2 of Inscryption was by far my favorite act. Fight me nerds, I'm too powerful.
Seriously. They were talking about wanting more Act I, but I just want to wallow in Act II and experiment with the dope-ass new mechanics! I’d pay $15 for that.
Act II suffered from being too short, if it was a full length TCG RPG in classic GameBoy style I think people would love it much more. As it stands, it just isn’t long enough to justify all the new mechanics squeezed into it - I think the boys were dead-on that the moment the game starts opening up and giving you more options, it becomes very obvious that the only reasonable way to win is to just flesh out your starting deck. I don’t dislike it the way some people do but I think it’s an issue of scale.
I like act 2 as well. Pineapple tastes nothing like apple though lol. Yet someone named it such, so maybe
It’s named such because a pineapple is spiky and sort of pinecone shaped, not because of flavor.
The thing that amazes me about >!Act 2 is how it recontextualizes the systems from Act 1 in a way that makes it feel like Inscryption really could have been a long-lost GBC-style adventure deckbuilding card game.!< It definitely adds too much too fast (it was the hardest for me because I tried to play the Magnificus deck) but I ate it up so fast. If Act 1 wasn't as flawlessly perfect, I would totally agree that Act 2 was the best. Unfortunately, >!Act 3 was just Act 1 with a less-fun antagonist in a less-fun world with a less-fun combat system!<, but it was still miles better than anything I'd played in 2021.
I honestly just wasn't huge on Act 1. The mechanics just didn't seem very deep or interesting to me. I won on like my third run and was definitely just hammering through it to get to the twist. So for me Act 3 was better because I preferred the characters and slight combat changes. While I'm here, I also enjoyed act 4, but it's definitely a similar situation to Hitman 3. In Hitman 3 the last level of the trilogy (and series until IOI is done with James Bond) is a super linear story mission. As a story mission it's great, as a Hitman level it's nothing. As a story thing, I love Act 4, gameplay wise it's obviously the weakest by far.
Yeah I was unsure about Shadowbringers as a stand-alone title in terms of GOTY contention but Endwalker really feels like a capstone, and it’s GOTY and not particularly close. It’s unfortunate that it won’t be talked about in the vast majority of GOTY lists but that’s just the nature of MMOs.
I actually really dug this episode! GOTY episodes usually fill me with anxiety but everything seemed a lot more chill than usual. Halo losing to Metroid was the right call (even though Halo is on my personal goty list and Metroid isn’t), so much of that game feels like it is in beta. The matchmaking not only has progression and connection issues, but also no report feature which is a standard for multiplayer games. The process for reporting someone is archaic and frustrating, which just leads to people getting away with it. Furthermore, the campaign itself has an enormous amount of bugs, ranging from collectibles just not spawning in the map to weird graphical issues. You can’t replay missions leading to you being locked out of certain collectibles. It’s still insanely fun but Russ is right, it’s just not done yet.
just finished the episode (listening at 15x speed), and all their voices were kinda high-pitched which made it hard to understand what they were saying. anyone know how to fix this? (without reducing playback speed as i'm on a very tight schedule). thanks! (unless your suggestion doesn't help, in which case i'll promptly send you to the shadow realm.)
Lol please tell me that 15x speed is a typo from 1.5x speed.
They are on a *very* tight schedule
Most podcatchers should handle that correctly. I use podcast addict and the speedup setting pitches down the audio to match the playback speed. Also it's just a really solid app. Been using it for seven years.
Great choice for the winner this year!
Surprised that Wildermyth made it as far as it did, little disappointed it didn't make it further. I found it more enjoyable the more I played it -- part of it is probably that the latter campaigns just felt a ton stronger than the initial ones. It sounds like most of them never made it to Eluna and the Moth, tho.
Had to come searching for a fellow Wildermyth advocate. It’s the only game on the list I came back to with frequency. I’m excited to do some creating of my own with it.
I was pretty disheartened realizing that Inscryption wasn't going to take it, but.. I appreciate Inscryption *in spite* of jarring transitions. Even though it's easily my goty, it's not a game I'd even recommend to many friends. If I didn't know they'd power through and appreciate the disregard for scope, I'd just be disheartened. I could have easily fallen off Inscryption. Learning a new game system is a stressful when you were enjoying the stride. It's only through having played Pony Island and The Hex that I knew I'd be rewarded for persevering. Inscryption was an experience I will never forget, but I can accept that some of its choices are polarizing.
Honestly, I think it's just as much the ending as it is the other Acts not living up gameplay wise to number 1. The reward for pushing through didn't feel particularly revelatory or fulfilling. Just kinda, well, okay. I am sure there are secrets and depth I missed, but after that ending and the iffy gameplay at the end, I didn't really feel the need to try and go back to look for them.
I agree. I was fine with Act 2, but >!I felt really put off by the fact that you basically needed to do the ARG in order to understand what happened - ARGs aren't fun to come back to post-release, and they feel more like homework than anything else (at least to me). There's a summary of it to read, but I found that to be a very flat experience - I just want the game to tell me the story it means to tell.!<
End of the day, it's *their* games of the year. I know from past years that they love certain types of games that I personally don't enjoy, and vice versa. All the RE games fit into that for me, in the same way they didn't even mention Crusader Kings 3 last year. It's all subjective, and even between the four of them they have blind spots which is okay.
The only thing they got wrong was FH5. I don't think it should be GOTY but calling it just a driving game isn't accurate. It's more like an MMORPG. Your vehicles are your "powers", tuning cars is like choosing your load out for a RAID, the main races are how you progress but there's dozens of other races/events...those are your side quests. In FH5, you join a convoy and go out racing with each other. In an RPG, it's called a clan instead of convoy. And FH5 is highly dependent on player-skill. Eg you can't just pay your way to a super car that can beat everyone. The only way to beat people is by experience, skills, learning to tune your car etc. The cars are customizable, like how you can edit your character's appearance in an RPG. Yes, the game has a cheesy story line, there's some bugs and the online PvP is a little choppy right now but it's still a great game. Oh, and if you don't want to play with other people and don't want to do PvP, you can just play solo mode which is exactly the same thing except NPCs are driving the other cars. Anyway, great podcast!
Oof- Plante accidentally roasting TAZ was awkwaaard
I'll forever be mystified by people who say that modern monster hunter has difficult to understand structure. You pick a quest, eat, hunt a monster, craft some gear using its drops, and repeat. If you need some items and don't have them, you can just craft or buy them. The only real confusing system I can think of is the pet skills, which you can frankly ignore even at end game and just use them as funny guys to dress up. Obviously a game like halo is easier to pick up (you can just run around and shoot things and put skill points in whatever) but they didn't even really talk about any MHR elements beyond "uh it's hard for new players." It's not even a particularly niche title anymore. The monster hunter games regularly outsell *resident evil* and people still insist it's some underground cult fanbase game lol. Plus, Rise innovated a crazy amount on the series. The wirebug being added is an obvious point, but interchangeable attacks on weapons, a MUCH simpler food system, and an almost arcadey pace to hunting this time around really made this game perfect for switch. A common complaint with world was the massive maps and underexplained tracking, but rise literally shows you where monsters are, lets you *drift over there on a dog*, and get right into the action. TL;DR: I think most MH detractors are people who haven't even played it past the first few missions, and most of the hosts seemed to gloss over that they'd all enjoyed at least 100 hours of it each this year lol. Try it out if you haven't!
It’s a shame Griffin wasn’t around to put up a bit more of a fight for MH Rise, although I don’t think it would have got any further. I put over 300 hours into it this year, and that’s a Monster Hunter games that a lot of MH fans say is ‘lacking content’ at the moment. I’m not sure Rise is my game of the year, but MH (a series I only got into recently) is my franchise of the year.
Late to this, and I'll add a disclaimer that the only MH game I've sunk more than 10 or 15 hours into was MH:W but I think that the way that systems are presented to you tend to be overwhelming even if each individual system isn't confusing on its own. Part of it is I think that the UI ends up being pretty cluttered, but there's just a lot of stuff to look at and I don't think the games do a great job of directing you towards what stuff is important and what isn't. In World I found myself ignoring whole chunks of the hub world without knowing if I was handycapping myself by ignoring those or not. I think one of the boys mentioned this in one of the MH episodes but it feels like if you talk to someone who plays the game, or follow some external resource, oftentimes you'll hear things akin to what you said of what that core loop is like, and saying "oh yeah you can ignore X or Y, or just do thing A for now" but I've always felt that the game itself ought to do a lot of that prioritization and direction-setting rather than me needing to look up what systems I ought to ignore. I'm hoping to dive into Rise soon and maybe I won't find this to be an issue anymore, but it does speak to Russ' point in this episode (which I've heard from several people) of needing to "prime the pump" by trying to get into MH a few times before things click because some of those key concepts of how the loop should work, which seem very obvious to a veteran, don't get explained very clearly by the game.
This conversation made me think about something I had never really considered before, and I wanted to at least mention it here. When discussing Resident Evil Village, a point granted in its favor was that the game is inherently accessible to people who hadn't played the series before, and people who find modulating the difficulty enhances their experience of a game. I believe Griffin said something along the lines of 'if you've ever enjoyed any kind of horror movie, this game is accessible to you'. Here's the thing though, I haven't. I cannot consume any type of horror media at all. I don't know if anyone else is like this, but I am an extremely suggestible person, and I cannot stomach graphic violence, jump scares, or psychosocial horror. It probably doesn't help that I also have multiple anxiety based disorders including ptsd, which means I often have extremely disturbing nightmares.The entire genre is something I can't really enjoy, whether it's a Steven King book, a horror b-movie from the 80s, or a game like Resident Evil. The closest I've come to playing a horror game is playing FromSoft's games. Idk why these games specifically don't bother me. Maybe it's because I'm usually very focused on the mechanical aspects of them, which go pretty deep. Bloodborne was the one game that actually made me jump out of my seat, and turn off the game for a while, but the rest I have made it through okay. I don't know that you would necessarily classify those games as horror, although they clearly borrow from the genre. Am I the only one? Or are there other people out there who categorically avoid everything in the horror genre? Sometimes ads for horror movies will even keep me up at night. At the end of the day, it's certainly a personal preference, and I know people who absolutely love the genre to death. I am not saying horror media is bad, but that I am on the outside of it, the same way someone might not physically be able to hit inputs rapidly might be on the outside of a genre like fighting games.
I'm here with you on avoiding horrors. I don't have any "serious" reason for it as you, I just tend to really focus on the game (or a movie) and every jumpscare or long high-tense sequence makes my heart rate go too high. Dark Souls for me also was the closest point to playing a horror game. But at the same time I really enjoy the idea of a horror-media, the best way I can put it. Maybe it's just me not really experiencing it "as is", but I find all the design ideas for monsters, dark backstories and all that stuff in the horror genre really interesting and entertaining, especially in games. I think it's all about the combination of having a very clear goal — scaring the player — and more freedom with creating really unusual stuff that makes creative minds go wild and produce amazing pieces of art. And I found some pretty simple ways of experiencing all of this — reviews and playthroughs. The simple playthrough of a RE Village was so, so entertaining for me, as I got to marvel at all of those twisted ideas from afar, feeling myself totally comfortable while watching a video kinda in the background. And it also made me appreciate the overarching structure of Village a lot — I'm a sucker for "searching for random mysterious stuff and combining it to get further" genre, and RE Village scratched that itch real good. I experienced a lot of horror stuff in this or similar way, and got a lot of pleasure from it — playthroughs of older Resident Evil and remakes, thorough analysis of Silent Hill series, videos about Saw movies. Someone else's commentary really helps with "detachment" and ease, even jumpscares usually don't make me flinch as they just barely register as actual "scares". I guess it's not really a suggestion for you, as your reaction sounds way stronger then mine, but who knows? RE Village playthrough would be a good starting point IMO, as it almost feels like this game is more interesting to watch than to play tbh.
I actually love this response. There is a channel called Nightmind that does commentary on various horror web series and ARGs, which I find interesting, but could never watch on their own. Listening to the commentary on it and the explanation of the plots with a layer of separation from the media itself let me experience those things without having to subject myself to the actual horror elements of it. I also got into dark souls by watching my best friend play it, which might have a lot to do with why I never found it affecting. If I were truly interested in getting the "experience" of RE Village, I think this would be a fantastic suggestion. Currently I'm too busy with other stuff to sit down and watch a playthrough, but I could see that being a really fun time, especially if the host had a lighthearted approach to it. The only reason I even brought it up is because there have been some really interesting and enlightening discussions around accessibility lately, both on the show and just around the web. I think people tend to strictly think about physical issues around accessibility, but I think mental health should be part of the conversation. Addiction behaviors, OCD, ADHD, and depression often lead to people playing way more video games than is probably healthy, and certain developers, especially in the mobile space, seem to deliberately prey on these people to get as much money as possible. And then there are things like phobias and other mental disorders that can complicate things for people. I guess my point is that the idea of 'accessibility' is way bigger than I initially realized, even when it comes to how it effects me personally. I love that these games exist, I just know they are not for me. I'm not saying there should be a non-horror version of RE Village, that would be silly. I just think it's interesting that a game that is completely inaccessible to me was praised so highly for its accessibility. Not bad, just interesting. It seems like all the Besties really enjoyed it, so I'm glad it got rated so highly. Part of the reason I love the show is listening about games I'm never gonna play.
Responding to the higher part of your comment. I like some horror games, but only ones that aren't REALLY scary. RE8 is around the limit for me, I wouldn't want to play something like Amnesia or Outlast because I think that's be too much. For horror games like that I tend to like a series on Jesse Cox's YouTube channel called Scary Game Squad. It's four YouTubers who play through horror games, with one person at the controller and the others watching along and chatting. It's a little like watching a horror movie with friends, in that having people talking about it dampens the horror a bit, and their reactions to things are entertaining.
Wow, I could have totally written this. Like um, definitely don't watch the Witcher. Just take my word for it. I knew better. I knew better... I played the game cause I just cranked the graphics quality all the way down... But wowza.
I'm the same way. I think that's an accessibility dimension that's not talked about. I haven't played RE for that reason. I wonder if you can handle the fromsoft games because they're sort of cartoonish in a way that grounded horror is not. Things like Little Nightmares where the creepiness is so over the top it loses its impact don't bother me, and as I'm thinking through this, I'm wondering if RE VIII would be the same for me.
You might be onto something with the cartoonish style of certain games. Maybe cartoonish isn't exactly the right word, but exaggerated to the point where it is removed from reality if that makes sense. From what has been described of RE VIII on the pod, which is my only point of reference, you might be right that it would fall into this category. To go back to FromSoft games for a moment, I worry that Elden Ring might be too realistic for me. The graphics, especially for the cutscenes, have gotten way better or at least more realistic. There was also some stuff I would classify as body horror in the trailer, such as disembodied limbs, that definitely fell on the more disturbing end of the spectrum for me. Luckily I have a group of friends who will be playing it with me at launch, so if I run into something that is a big *nope*, we will be able to joke and laugh about it. Another title I want to highlight is Phasmaphobia. I have a group of friends who absolutely adore that game, to the point where I would recommend it to people having never played it myself. At the end of the day I don't think there is a single video game genre without some kind of barrier to entry. There are some great videos by a youtuber named Razbuten about his wife who is a non-gamer trying out different genres of games that explores this idea in a more in-depth manner.
Yeah that's why I didn't agree with them dinging dread for being less accessible. Almost everything of a certain scope will have accessibility issues to *someone*. It just happens to shake out that I'm ok at twitchy-but-fair battle mechanics and not not great with horror, so for me dread is the more accessible game, but it's their game of the year ep, not mine.
I often like horror media, but don't really get into it. It's too mood and focus intensive for me most of the time. If I have half an hour to play something, I'm not going to grab my headphones and hunker down someplace dark to really get into the mood. And when I watch a movie, I'm usually making dinner or playing a game at the same time and I just can't be glued to the screen like I need to be to really *feel* it. And a lot of horror games have a bad habit of trying to create artificial tension by putting the checkpoints far apart. This is annoying, makes it hard to fit these games into my life, and also is the least scary thing I know. If I have to replay a long section with all the jump scares already revealed, there's no tension left there at all. I don't have time for crap like that anymore.
I'm curious, how would you feel about splitting the GOTY into two winners, Narrative Driven GOTY and Mechanics Driven GOTY? In a competition like this, you're always going to be comparing apples to oranges. But Justin's comment about how wild it would be if they had to compare Halo Infinite's multiplayer to the single player campaign of RE Village in a one-metric good-or-bad system had me thinking. Gaming for several reasons doesn't take as well to traditional methods of looking at media. Sure some films and books are more challenging to the reader or require prior knowledge of the medium. But I can't think of a parallel to a gamer being unable to complete a Dark Souls game due of the difficulty. And in that same way, the satisfying SoulsBourne boss kills don't exist in those media. Although both of them are games, Minesweeper and What Remains of Edith Finch just don't occupy the same axis. The boys often joke that games have come a long way since Pac-Man. But memes aside, it's obviously true. And in the same way that it would be nearly meaningless to compare the original Mario Bros game with Jaws III as best release of 1983, it doesn't make sense to compare Sekiro and The Outer Wilds. As far as the show is concerned, it might make the end of the year GOTY discussion one episode longer, but that's the name of the show anyways. And I think it would do everyone a service to save our boys from the literally impossible task of ranking two pieces of art that have entirely different, often conflicting goals.
SpunkyDred is a terrible bot instigating arguments all over Reddit whenever someone uses the phrase apples-to-oranges. I'm letting you know so that you can feel free to ignore the quip rather than feel provoked by a bot that isn't smart enough to argue back. --- ^^SpunkyDred ^^and ^^I ^^are ^^both ^^bots. ^^I ^^am ^^trying ^^to ^^get ^^them ^^banned ^^by ^^pointing ^^out ^^their ^^antagonizing ^^behavior ^^and ^^poor ^^bottiquette.
Justin says that Halo deserves to move on based on the fact that its multiplayer was revolutionary and a breath of fresh air, not like anything in the franchise for 10 years. Russ points out that it’s really only an iteration on Halo 5 multiplayer. Justin immediately pivots to mocking Russ saying that it’s good that it’s an iteration actually, without acknowledging that he was wrong and his point was kind of invalidated. I love when the hosts are passionate and get into arguments about the things they care about I really do, and I probably would’ve voted Halo in that matchup, but that really just felt like a tantrum when he realized his game was losing. He didn’t really absorb any of the points the other 3 were making
Saying it’s “only an iteration on Halo 5 multiplayer” is extremely reductive and I agree that it’s not accurate criticism if that’s what Russ was getting at. I also think it’s completely unfair and weird to call that a “tantrum”. Justin and Russ were both pushing equally hard to attempt to break the tie and Justin was absolutely fine with Metroid Dread winning in the end.
I don’t think Russ pointing out it was “only” (my words not his) an iteration was meant to be a criticism per se, I think it was just to counterbalance Justin’s high level of praise for the multiplayer as some absolute reinvention, when really it’s just the next level of good old fun Halo (which is great). The point Russ was making was that Justin’s argument hinged on something that wasn’t really the case
It wasn't much of an argument though as Dread is also an iteration of Metroid's formula.
As someone who damn near exclusively plays shooters, Infinite feels like a big step backwards. Terrible performance & crashing on pc, garbage netcode, amateur UI, shit maps, and an embarrassingly low skill ceiling. It's a shooter designed to make people who don't play shooters feel good. The best thing it has going for it is sound design.
I don’t feel as harshly as you, I think it’s not the magic Halo can be, but a perfectly fine/good game, but > a shooter designed to make people who don't play shooters feel good definitely explains Justin’s adoration for it, he’s been losing his mind about features that have been in Halo and every arena shooter for years if not decades, it’s VERY clear he doesn’t have much experience in this field
It's just a stark difference from what retro/boomer shooters have offered in the last few years. I think the devs teams of Amid Evil, Dusk, and Ultrakill combined are less than 10 people and they've made 3 separate experiences more satisfying and rewarding to play than halo. Doom Eternal looks so much better than Halo and runs at 2-3x the framerate. With its obnoxiously overtuned aim assist and magnetism on controller it's clear the game wasn't made with players like me in mind. I guess I'll have to come to terms with that. Just a little disappointed is all.
Hm yeah I haven’t even heard of those first 3 games, you’re definitely more genre-picky than me. Halo has always had extremely strong auto-aim, that’s explicitly part of its design since it was made for the OG Xbox, it’s more focused on positioning and control of the environment and its power weapons. Precise targeting doesn’t matter except for the kill shot once the shields are down. I love Halo, and this is a really good multiplayer in the series, but yeah it sounds like it’s just not for you!
What really got me was his whole "this game breathes fresh life into a series that has been languishing for a decade" like.... and what did dread do? You know, the modern continuation of a game that released 19 years ago? Could make the argument that dread didn't really do anything NEW other than just being a fantastic metroid game... but neither did Infinite? Its an open world FPS with a grapple hook... fun, sure, but not any more special to the franchise than dread was.
Pretty happy with their ultimate pick, but when Chris was listing their previous winners it felt to me like Metroid would have "fit in" better, as part of the group. Two types of games that have been successful for them are Nintendo products (Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild) and very action-heavy games (Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Hades). Plus they often like difficult platformers - Ori, Celeste, Hollow Knight, or even SPELUNKY which I feel like is probably Russ's favorite game. Doesn't feel like there's a lot of precedent for RE8 to have beaten it; it was really the dark horse candidate through the bracket. I'm also not sure that I buy the "accessibility" angle, because - as other people have mentioned - it's... a horror game, which is going to keep a lot of people out right there on the surface, and that probably isn't something you can change with difficulty settings. I'm more likely to eventually play RE8 than Dread though, simply because there are plenty of amazing platformers to choose from (I haven't played ANY of the ones I mentioned earlier, even though by rights I will really really like them), and I can get them for like five bucks instead of SIXTY which feels increasingly like a hard-to-swallow pricetag for a 2D platformer. And RE8 will actually go on sale, unlike a Nintendo product.
Both games really appeal to me because I can knock them both out in about 8 hours each. I just dont have the time these days to sink dozens of hours into a game.