Game of the Year 2024 with Still Loading Podcast, More Japanese Gaming Pamphlets

[00:00:08] Welcome to Tokyo Game Life, a Tokyo-based video game podcast focusing on Nintendo and gaming culture in Japan's capital. Your host, Mono, here to bring you a slice of gaming life from Tokyo. Fellow podcaster Josh from the Still Loading Podcast returns as we chat about our favorite games of 2024. New games, old games, DLC, whatever we played this year and we liked, we're going to talk about it, and I guarantee you no one on the planet has our same list.

[00:00:35] Plus, I spilled the beans on what's inside this year's amazing gaming pamphlets you can pick up for free at any game store in Japan.

[00:00:42] Let's jump into the games with Game of the Year 2024 with Josh from the Still Loading Podcast.

[00:00:54] It's time, Game of the Year 2024. This is the fourth Game of the Year segment on the podcast, and listeners, as you all know, I can't do it alone as I'm joined by a very special guest.

[00:01:04] So guest, please introduce yourself.

[00:01:06] Oh, it's me, Josh, the host of the Still Loading Podcast. Mono, thank you once again for having me on the show. Always a pleasure. I love your podcast, and I'm always honored that you invite me on, so I've been looking forward to this.

[00:01:19] Welcome back. This is the third time you've appeared on a Game of the Year episode, and this year you appeared on our Akura Toriyama Games episode.

[00:01:27] And I can't think of a better person because both of us combined have a one-of-a-kind Game of the Year combo.

[00:01:34] No list out there is going to match us game for game.

[00:01:36] I know you play a lot of retro games that pop up on your list.

[00:01:39] I don't want you to spoil your list, but tell me this.

[00:01:42] Are there any games actually released in 2024 on your top five?

[00:01:47] No, not a single one.

[00:01:49] So this is all retro.

[00:01:51] Okay, interesting.

[00:01:52] Well, there's a couple that's a little bit more modern within the last 10 years.

[00:01:56] There's one that's at least within the last four.

[00:01:58] I did play Animal Well.

[00:02:00] That's one that came out this year.

[00:02:02] I did not play a single game from 2023 when we did our 2023 Game of the Year.

[00:02:06] But this time around, I actually did play games from 2024, at least one.

[00:02:11] I'd have to go back and double-check my full list.

[00:02:13] All of my games will be from 2024.

[00:02:15] So listeners, you have a good mix of games that are great that came out in 2024 and games that are still great in 2024.

[00:02:22] I'm really excited to hear about your picks.

[00:02:24] And this year's format, same as always, I have five games.

[00:02:27] Josh has five games.

[00:02:28] And we're going to get into why they blew us away in 2024.

[00:02:31] But before that, we have our bonus categories, our bonus Omaque Awards.

[00:02:36] And yes, I did have to look up why they called these last year because I totally forgot.

[00:02:40] But Omaque is a freebie you get when you buy something.

[00:02:43] So these are five categories we made up just to shine some love on some of our favorite things from games we played in 2024.

[00:02:49] That's not just listing our favorite games.

[00:02:51] So these are very specific, fun categories.

[00:02:54] So Josh, you have guessed right.

[00:02:56] So go ahead, share your first Omaque Award.

[00:02:59] Oh, man, these are no particular order.

[00:03:03] I'm going to start off with the most N64 game that's not actually an N64 game.

[00:03:09] And that award goes to Super Kiwi 64, which is a little indie game.

[00:03:15] Really fun, cute, charming game.

[00:03:17] A little bit too easy, admittedly, but it's meant to emulate N64 collect-a-thon platformers.

[00:03:24] And it really does that.

[00:03:26] It's pretty much right there.

[00:03:28] So I enjoyed playing it a lot.

[00:03:30] It was a lot of fun.

[00:03:31] But, man, very N64 in some of the best ways and some of the worst ways.

[00:03:36] So that's my first Omaque Award.

[00:03:38] The most N64 game that's not really an N64 game.

[00:03:41] It goes to Super Kiwi 64.

[00:03:44] I've heard a lot about that game.

[00:03:45] And it does capture the N64 style of gameplay of Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64.

[00:03:50] I did hear it is quite short.

[00:03:52] Maybe two hours or so?

[00:03:54] It was like two hours.

[00:03:54] When I saw that, I was like, ooh, that's an easy one that I can play in an afternoon, which never happens.

[00:04:00] It was refreshing to play a game that was only two hours long.

[00:04:05] Yeah, it is nice to play a game that's pretty much the same length as a movie.

[00:04:08] I remember one day, I just had a free day, and I went through two or three games that were about an hour or two long.

[00:04:13] I went through Donut County.

[00:04:15] I think I went through a short hike that same day.

[00:04:17] So that's a great feeling to get through all those games in a short time.

[00:04:20] It really is.

[00:04:21] I was happy with that.

[00:04:22] Another short game I played, I did play Astro's Playroom for the first time because I got a PS5 finally.

[00:04:27] Have not gotten the new Astro's game just yet because money has been tight.

[00:04:31] But I loved Astro's Playroom as well.

[00:04:34] Just thinking of short games reminded me of that.

[00:04:36] You might hear more about Astro later on in the episode.

[00:04:40] I'm excited.

[00:04:40] All right, my first Omake Award.

[00:04:43] The category is Best Nintendo World Championships Speedrun Challenge.

[00:04:48] Nintendo World Championships, if you don't know, was a game released by Nintendo earlier this year

[00:04:52] where it is a collection of sort of speedrun minigames from the NES era.

[00:04:57] For example, it will give you a challenge to complete Mario 1-1 in allotted time, and then it will give you a score.

[00:05:03] There are 13 games represented, all Famicom Classics and also Ice Climbers, which is not a classic.

[00:05:08] But Nintendo keeps trying to push us that, oh, this is a classic game, but it is not a good game at all.

[00:05:14] But I would say my favorite challenge is Octorok Onslaught from the first Legend of Zelda.

[00:05:21] If you've never played this challenge, it's a very short challenge, maybe five seconds to complete.

[00:05:25] But if you want to get really good at it, you've got to play it.

[00:05:28] You've got to beat it in around two seconds.

[00:05:30] What's really fun about Nintendo World Championships is that, okay, some of these games, they're hard to go back to.

[00:05:35] For example, Zelda 2. I don't like Zelda 2 at all.

[00:05:38] But 10-second chunk of Zelda 2 where I only have to focus on this one thing,

[00:05:43] that is actually more fun than playing through the entire game.

[00:05:46] And so this Octorok Onslaught for Zelda 1, there are four Octoroks on the screen,

[00:05:51] and you have to defeat them as fast as you can.

[00:05:54] You might think, okay, this is really simple, but there's so much tech there

[00:05:58] trying to defeat all these four Octoroks in about two seconds.

[00:06:03] So there's one on the left, one on the right, and two up top.

[00:06:06] So you might think, okay, first, because you're kind of shifted towards the left,

[00:06:09] hit the left one, go up, hit the top two, then hit the right one.

[00:06:12] And I got maybe three seconds.

[00:06:14] I think I got an S ranking, which is the highest rank.

[00:06:17] But at this time, this was one of the weekly challenges.

[00:06:20] That means everyone is playing these challenges at the same time.

[00:06:23] And at the end of the week, they have a score based on how well they did it.

[00:06:27] And I started looking at other people's videos and tech, and oh, this is much more complicated

[00:06:31] than just, oh, just hit it the way you think it should be hit.

[00:06:35] For example, another person did right, up, left.

[00:06:38] And then another person did right, left, up.

[00:06:41] And shaving a tenth of a second off of your speedrun score is way more exciting

[00:06:47] than going from, let's say, a one-minute challenge to 55 seconds.

[00:06:51] And I got really into this because I'm not super into speedrunning.

[00:06:55] What about you, Josh?

[00:06:56] Are you a speedrun type of person?

[00:06:57] I have dabbled in speedrunning for the semi-obscure PS1 racing game called Sledstorm.

[00:07:04] At one point in time, I was in fourth place, but it was fourth out of six people.

[00:07:08] But I did dabble in speedrunning for a little bit.

[00:07:10] But I really enjoy watching, especially when Games Done Quick comes around.

[00:07:15] Same here.

[00:07:15] I'm not into speedrunning.

[00:07:16] But the Nintendo World Championships did a great job in showing you the appeal of speedrunning.

[00:07:21] I'm not going to speedrun a whole game, but I can speedrun this three-second chunk of gameplay

[00:07:25] and try to get better and better.

[00:07:27] Best Nintendo World Championships speedrun challenge.

[00:07:29] I'm going to give it to Octorok on soft.

[00:07:32] Josh, go ahead and share your second Omake Award.

[00:07:35] This Omake Award goes to my hottest take for a game that is a classic that I think is not quite as good

[00:07:42] as everyone says it is.

[00:07:43] It's a long name for award, and I probably won't be able to repeat it verbatim.

[00:07:47] But you know what?

[00:07:48] I'm rolling with the punches.

[00:07:50] It goes to ToeJam & Earl.

[00:07:52] So I think one of the games in my top five was part of this.

[00:07:56] In January for my Patreon, I do a Backlog Month poll.

[00:08:01] My patrons can vote for as many games as they want.

[00:08:04] The top four games with the most votes would win the poll.

[00:08:07] And then I covered them in October this year for Backlog Month.

[00:08:11] And one of those four games that won was ToeJam & Earl.

[00:08:14] I've been meaning to play this game for a while.

[00:08:17] My original co-host who co-founded the podcast with me before I went solo,

[00:08:22] Justin, it's one of his favorite games of all time.

[00:08:24] So I had him back on the show for that episode.

[00:08:26] I really did not enjoy it in the slightest.

[00:08:30] Without rehashing all of my gripes from the episode,

[00:08:33] the game about exploration and experimentation that actively disincentivizes you

[00:08:38] from exploring and experimenting.

[00:08:40] Because there's these presents that you can pick up

[00:08:42] that you don't know what they do until you try them the first time.

[00:08:47] Some of them are helpful, and some of them can hurt you.

[00:08:50] Some of those presents that will just kill you straight up.

[00:08:53] Just completely wipe out your character.

[00:08:55] It's kind of frustrating that there's a game that is trying to encourage you

[00:09:00] to do all this stuff and then makes the power-ups not even that helpful,

[00:09:05] in my opinion.

[00:09:05] There's one that you can move really fast at speed boosts,

[00:09:08] but it's harder to control your character,

[00:09:10] which causes you to fall off the level.

[00:09:12] I really did not enjoy this game.

[00:09:13] I understand it's more my taste versus valid criticism,

[00:09:17] but it really didn't do it for me.

[00:09:19] I really did not enjoy my time with it.

[00:09:20] So my hot take of the year is that ToeJam & Earl

[00:09:23] is not as good of a game as people say it is.

[00:09:26] I think that's not a super hot take.

[00:09:29] I think a lot of people do agree with you,

[00:09:30] because when we think about ToeJam & Earl,

[00:09:33] we do think of it sort of as a classic gaming franchise.

[00:09:36] But again, I think people like the words ToeJam & Earl,

[00:09:40] and they like the character designs and the music,

[00:09:43] and maybe the graphics as well.

[00:09:44] But actually playing it, that's when it kind of falls apart.

[00:09:47] It's rough.

[00:09:48] It's a unique game.

[00:09:50] I'll give it that.

[00:09:50] Oh, absolutely.

[00:09:51] What you're playing is not like other games.

[00:09:53] But I'm also not a huge ToeJam & Earl fan.

[00:09:56] Again, I love the words ToeJam & Earl together as a phrase,

[00:10:00] and I love the music and the look of the characters.

[00:10:04] But yes, not for me.

[00:10:05] But actually, one of my friends from high school,

[00:10:07] he bought an Xbox to play the ToeJam & Earl Xbox game.

[00:10:12] Okay.

[00:10:13] So that was a system seller for him.

[00:10:15] But again, we played it a little bit,

[00:10:17] and then we're like, let's play Halo instead.

[00:10:19] I think Halo is a much better game than Xbox ToeJam & Earl.

[00:10:22] I guess it surprises me that you agree with me,

[00:10:24] because it's fine.

[00:10:26] It just, I don't know, just didn't do it for me.

[00:10:29] All right.

[00:10:29] My next Omake Award is Best Gaming Event in Tokyo,

[00:10:33] or I guess maybe I should change it to Best Gaming Event in Japan in 2024.

[00:10:37] And I'm going to give it to Dragon Quest Carnival.

[00:10:41] Now, there's actually quite a lot of great gaming events in Tokyo,

[00:10:44] and the vicinity of Tokyo.

[00:10:46] It inspired me to make a new page on my podcast webpage about Tokyo video game events,

[00:10:50] because there were just, especially during the summer,

[00:10:52] so many happening at the same time,

[00:10:54] that it was hard for me to just remember off the top of my head.

[00:10:57] So I need to write it down somewhere and share it with the world.

[00:11:00] For example, there was a great exhibition about EarthBound,

[00:11:03] and it showed a lot of documents from EarthBound's development.

[00:11:07] There's going on right now in Tokyo,

[00:11:08] which I just did a podcast episode about.

[00:11:10] There's the Pokemon Colgate exhibit,

[00:11:12] where Japanese artisans make these amazing Pokemon-themed handicrafts.

[00:11:17] And there's just so many other pop-up shops, events, and crossovers this year.

[00:11:21] But I would say the best one is the Dragon Quest Carnival,

[00:11:25] which was in Yokohama, about an hour away from Tokyo.

[00:11:28] And it was a collection of different events.

[00:11:31] There was a stamp rally,

[00:11:32] where you go around these two huge department stores,

[00:11:35] and you find the stamp booth,

[00:11:37] and then just stamp your card, and you get a prize.

[00:11:39] Stamp rally is a really popular activity to do in Japan.

[00:11:41] And they had these huge statues and displays of Dragon Quest characters.

[00:11:46] They had all the monsters spread out.

[00:11:48] You would find, oh, here's the slime, here's King Slime.

[00:11:51] Even though I'm playing Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D right now,

[00:11:54] I don't know a lot of the names of the monsters.

[00:11:56] There's Killer Machine.

[00:11:57] I remember Killer Machine.

[00:11:58] He's around there somewhere.

[00:12:00] So they do have classic designs.

[00:12:02] You can get great photo ops with these statues.

[00:12:04] There are huge, gigantic slime balloons in the department stores,

[00:12:08] which, again, awesome photo ops.

[00:12:10] So you go around, stamp rally, photo ops, statues, and balloons.

[00:12:16] There was a Dragon Quest-themed cafe,

[00:12:19] and I had some Dragon Quest food.

[00:12:20] The food was pretty good, but the appearance was absolutely amazing.

[00:12:24] I had these slime dongle, which is the mochi balls,

[00:12:27] and they have the slime face printed on them.

[00:12:29] I had the Mimic treasure box.

[00:12:32] It was kind of like a burger, but it was shaped like a gigantic treasure box.

[00:12:35] That wasn't the bread was the outside of the treasure box?

[00:12:38] Yeah.

[00:12:39] If you've never seen this, listeners,

[00:12:40] it's just a, imagine an open treasure box,

[00:12:43] and it has a black void for, I guess, a face,

[00:12:45] and two bright eyes and teeth on the edges.

[00:12:48] The black part of the treasure box is the hamburger meat.

[00:12:52] And then that tongue was just a slice of bacon.

[00:12:55] And the actual treasure box was bread.

[00:12:58] It was heavy on the bread, but fun to eat, even though it was hard to eat.

[00:13:02] They also had slime painting, which unfortunately I wasn't able to do,

[00:13:05] but you could paint your own slime and take it home with you.

[00:13:08] On the observation deck of one of the buildings that was hosting the carnival,

[00:13:12] they had, again, more statues.

[00:13:14] They had Dragon Quest characters posted on the windows,

[00:13:17] so it looks like the character is kind of flying in the air.

[00:13:20] And they also had a mini exhibit of documents from the original development of Dragon Quest 3.

[00:13:26] A lot of these were you couldn't take pictures of.

[00:13:28] I guess they still wanted to be secret for whatever reason.

[00:13:30] But it was really amazing to see the actual documents and sketches

[00:13:34] from the original development of the game, inches away from my face.

[00:13:37] This carnival event, so many different things you could partake in.

[00:13:41] It was just really fun to walk around Yokohama in these department stores

[00:13:44] and just really enjoy Dragon Quest.

[00:13:47] I would definitely say it's my favorite gaming event in Japan of 2024.

[00:13:51] Was there any slime jello?

[00:13:53] I feel like that's a missed opportunity if they didn't have a jello mold of the slime.

[00:13:57] I had the dongo.

[00:13:58] Pretty much all the food was slime-related.

[00:14:01] It was a slime curry, where it was rice, and then the shape of the curry is a slime.

[00:14:05] And I know you played through the original three Dragon Quest games,

[00:14:08] so is there any Dragon Quest monster that you would want to eat?

[00:14:12] Ooh, the golem.

[00:14:14] You could totally do the golem as Rice Krispie Treats.

[00:14:17] That's a good one.

[00:14:18] So, Josh, share your third Omaque Award.

[00:14:22] So, since we're talking about Dragon Quest,

[00:14:25] this will be a good time to bring up this one.

[00:14:28] It's my In Memoriam Award in honor of Akira Toriyama.

[00:14:31] We did our episode on it earlier this year.

[00:14:33] It goes to Dragon Quest, the original Dragon Quest.

[00:14:36] I loved playing that game.

[00:14:38] I really enjoyed my time with it.

[00:14:39] When I started the Toriyama Month series,

[00:14:42] playing Dragon Quest 1 through 3 and Chrono Trigger,

[00:14:44] I had no idea what to expect for the first three Dragon Quest games.

[00:14:49] I was expecting Dragon Quest 1 to be a little rough around the edges, and it was.

[00:14:52] I did play the Super Nintendo port of it.

[00:14:55] They did add some quality of life stuff to it, which definitely made it a lot easier than the original NES one.

[00:15:01] But I was pleasantly surprised by how straightforward it was.

[00:15:06] Very direct and to the point and no nonsense, but in a good way.

[00:15:10] One of the things I loved about it was that while they gave you little direction with where to go,

[00:15:15] they would tell you, you know, go to this town to the north or go to this town to the west.

[00:15:19] And it was up to you to try to figure out which town that was, how to get to it.

[00:15:23] The world was small enough where while there was lots of random battles that normally would disincentivize me to explore because I'm getting tired.

[00:15:30] I'm just trying to find where to go.

[00:15:32] I don't want to have to stop my progress every two seconds.

[00:15:34] The world was small enough that type of frustration never sunk in.

[00:15:39] It really kept it straightforward and streamlined, and it's just a really great time all around.

[00:15:44] So I loved playing Dragon Quest 1.

[00:15:47] I really enjoyed my time with it.

[00:15:48] So I had to do a semi-serious award with an In Memoriam award and goes to Dragon Quest.

[00:15:56] Are you excited for the Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD remake coming next to you?

[00:16:00] I mean, not particularly, just because I would only get it for Dragon Quest 1.

[00:16:06] And since I just beat it, I'll be honest, I'm kind of Dragon Quest out because I played three games in a row in the span of a month and a half.

[00:16:12] The idea of jumping into another Dragon Quest that I've already played, I can wait.

[00:16:17] If I played any other Dragon Quest right now, it would be four or five.

[00:16:20] I'm very excited to try five because everyone keeps telling me how good five is.

[00:16:25] Five is actually my wife's favorite game ever, and she's not really a gamer.

[00:16:29] She's played the canonical great Japanese games, Dragon Quest 5, like Puyo Puyo.

[00:16:34] She really likes Dragon Quest 5, and I think a lot of people in Japan, if you're making a list of top 10 games in the history of Japan,

[00:16:42] Japanese people would put Dragon Quest 5 maybe at number one or at least pretty high up there.

[00:16:47] Okay, my third Omanke award goes to Best Echo from The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom.

[00:16:53] Now, Echoes from this game, they are little monsters or objects that you can find and they make a duplicate of with your magic wand power.

[00:17:01] So you can put them anywhere in the world and use them for puzzles, for combat, for anything you could want.

[00:17:06] And my favorite out of the over 100 Echoes in the game, I'm going to give it to Ignazol.

[00:17:11] Now, Ignazol is a brand new monster.

[00:17:15] So if you played Zelda all your life, you've never seen it before until this game.

[00:17:19] What it is, is a new version of a Zol, which is a classic Zelda enemy, which is kind of, ironically, it is kind of the Zelda version of a slime.

[00:17:28] Just a green jumping little slime guy.

[00:17:30] If you've ever played Link's Awakening, it's pretty much the first enemy you come across.

[00:17:33] It's just a green ball with eyes.

[00:17:35] But Ignazol, he is the fire version of that.

[00:17:38] Basically a candle.

[00:17:39] Think of it like a candle slime, if you will.

[00:17:42] Out of all the amazing creatures you could make in the game or all the awesome objects that you can find in the game, why is Ignazol the best one?

[00:17:49] Well, I think it's because he is definitely the most versatile Echo in the entire game.

[00:17:53] You summon him and he can just catch monsters on fire.

[00:17:56] He can light torches.

[00:17:57] He can burn leaves.

[00:18:00] He can do anything you want.

[00:18:01] Just having a flame guy is super useful in this game.

[00:18:04] It's also fun just to summon five of them at the same time, and they're just burning up the entire field, which you don't really think of in a 2D Zelda game that you can manipulate land like that.

[00:18:13] But you can, thanks to Ignazol.

[00:18:15] So he's one of the first Echoes you get.

[00:18:18] He's very simple, but you don't really get a great replacement for him if you want to catch things on fire.

[00:18:23] So Ignazol, my favorite Echo.

[00:18:24] I really want to play Echoes of Wisdom, and when they announced that, I was so excited just to see a completely new direction in Zelda.

[00:18:33] Well, the fact that Zelda was the main character, I thought that was really cool.

[00:18:36] Yes, and maybe Echoes of Wisdom will appear later on in the podcast.

[00:18:40] So like Astro, maybe he'll appear.

[00:18:42] You never know.

[00:18:43] All right, Josh, I want to hear about your fourth Omake Award.

[00:18:46] All right.

[00:18:47] My fourth Omake Award is the I Should Have Known Better Award.

[00:18:51] It goes to World of Warcraft, because at the time this episode comes out, I know your release schedule and at least one of these episodes will be out.

[00:18:59] I did a three-part series on World of Warcraft for its 20th anniversary, and in doing so, I got the itch to play World of Warcraft again.

[00:19:11] I know I shouldn't.

[00:19:12] I have a lot of other games that I need to play for upcoming episodes of the show.

[00:19:17] It took me an extra minute to get into this recording session because I needed to get to a city so I could get rested experience before the recording session.

[00:19:27] I know better than this, Mono.

[00:19:29] I know that I should not be playing an MMO that charges me monthly, even though it was only $15.

[00:19:34] It was only $15, though.

[00:19:36] That was it, just $15, and that's how they get you.

[00:19:38] So I should know better, but I still gave it anyway.

[00:19:42] That award goes to World of Warcraft.

[00:19:44] Even though it's not a 2024 game, I think a lot of people have played it in 2024 because of the 20th year anniversary.

[00:19:50] I'm sure there have been major updates this year, so I would consider it a 2024 game, a live service game that got a lot of attention in 2024.

[00:19:59] To be fair, I'm playing WoW Classic, which is just the original 2004 version of World of Warcraft.

[00:20:06] I didn't start playing until the Wrath of Lich King expansion, so I missed the first expansion and I missed Vanilla, as they call it.

[00:20:12] So I'm just playing Classic right now, and it's been a good time.

[00:20:15] All right, my fourth Omake Award goes to the best 2023 game I played in 2024.

[00:20:21] That will go to Baldur's Gate 3, which we did talk a little bit about last year on the podcast, mostly saying none of us played Baldur's Gate 3, so it wasn't going to be mentioned.

[00:20:31] I was just going to wait until it came to Switch 2, because at that time I thought, well, Switch 2 is probably going to come out in 2024, which I was definitely wrong about.

[00:20:40] And Larian, the company who developed it, they did port some of their games to Switch.

[00:20:44] So I thought, okay, well, next year they'll probably put Baldur's Gate 3 on the Switch 2.

[00:20:49] No Switch 2, and also Larian also said that they're kind of moving past the game.

[00:20:52] They're not developing any DLC for it, and they're moving on to the next project.

[00:20:56] So I thought, oh, they're probably not going to put Baldur's Gate 3 on Switch 2, and also Switch 2 is not coming out in 2024.

[00:21:03] And this was at a time where my wife was really busy, so she wasn't coming home until pretty late at night, maybe 10 or 11 or so, because she was busy with work.

[00:21:11] So I thought, okay, if I'm ever going to play this game, now is the time to play it, because I got this two or three month stretch where my wife is really busy.

[00:21:17] Let's see if I can crank out Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:21:19] And I did. In my free time, I really dedicated a lot of time to Baldur's Gate 3 during this period where my wife was very busy.

[00:21:27] I really enjoyed it, and I would definitely put it on my top five of last year if I had played it last year.

[00:21:33] It's a CRPG, which stands for either Classic RPG or Computer RPG, depending on who you talk to.

[00:21:39] But it's a classic PC-style RPG from the 90s.

[00:21:43] Bioware got their start with Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and a bunch of other games before they moved on to Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

[00:21:51] And I always thought these games were just so impenetrable, even though I like JRPGs.

[00:21:55] I thought, oh, the computer RPGs, the PC RPGs, that's the whole other world.

[00:22:00] There's no way you're going to know what to do.

[00:22:02] Just a taskbar with 800 attacks on it, there's no way you're going to figure it out.

[00:22:06] But I think Baldur's Gate 3 was pretty accessible, and I played it on PS5.

[00:22:11] So the menus and everything were kind of geared towards console players.

[00:22:14] So it was a bit more digestible than if I just played it on the PC.

[00:22:19] And even though it is a classic CRPG, it did feel a lot like a JRPG in many, many ways.

[00:22:26] We've talked about Dragon Quest a lot this year on my podcast.

[00:22:29] I talked about Wizardry, which heavily inspired Dragon Quest, and then that heavily inspired every JRPG ever.

[00:22:35] However, Western RPGs and the JRPGs are not too dissimilar in terms of ideas and mechanics.

[00:22:41] So it did feel like I was playing a JRPG.

[00:22:45] If you played a JRPG before, you can play a CRPG.

[00:22:50] It's not totally different.

[00:22:52] Even though some of the ideas are a bit alien, because it is based on Dungeons & Dragons.

[00:22:56] Some of the concepts, especially about the magic and how you use the magic, is different from your typical JRPG magic system.

[00:23:02] But again, what I really liked about Baldur's Gate 3 is that they really shoved a ton of content into this game.

[00:23:09] This is one of those games where you get a side quest to go into this house.

[00:23:13] And then you go in the house.

[00:23:14] And then you go into the basement.

[00:23:16] And in the basement, you find another staircase.

[00:23:18] And you're in a cave.

[00:23:19] And then at the end of the cave is a temple.

[00:23:21] You go into a temple.

[00:23:22] And then you go down into the temple.

[00:23:24] There's a boss that you need to fight at this temple.

[00:23:26] The escalation of very simple tasks into this big grand adventure is something the game does really well.

[00:23:32] It has great writing, a great story.

[00:23:34] It's a pretty unconventional story, I would say.

[00:23:37] Of course, it is a save-the-world type of story.

[00:23:40] But it starts off as you're kidnapped by these squids.

[00:23:43] They're squid magicians.

[00:23:45] And they make you go crazy.

[00:23:47] They're the big bad guys of Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:23:49] Which I thought was an interesting idea.

[00:23:51] Where they took this minor enemy.

[00:23:53] But they made it the main bad guy of the game.

[00:23:56] So that type of thing where...

[00:23:58] Okay, if you think of what's the main enemy of a JRPG.

[00:24:00] It's probably a god, right?

[00:24:01] Or a gigantic dragon.

[00:24:03] But here they took this sort of minor...

[00:24:06] Again, I'm not a D&D head.

[00:24:07] So maybe it's not that minor.

[00:24:08] But it is kind of a random enemy.

[00:24:11] And they made it the big bad of this adventure.

[00:24:15] And that's a really interesting idea.

[00:24:16] Think of Final Fantasy.

[00:24:17] And I'm trying to think of what's a classic Final Fantasy villain.

[00:24:21] A Marlboro.

[00:24:22] Marlboro.

[00:24:23] That's a perfect one.

[00:24:24] Imagine if the big bad of Final Fantasy 17 was a Marlboro.

[00:24:28] Or like the Marlboro Society.

[00:24:31] That is...

[00:24:31] Or King Marlboro is the big bad guy of Final Fantasy 17.

[00:24:37] That would be a really interesting idea.

[00:24:40] Because your adventure seems so small-scale at first.

[00:24:42] But then it blossoms into this huge epic adventure.

[00:24:45] Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:24:46] If you just like RPGs in general.

[00:24:48] If you like adventure games.

[00:24:49] You would like Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:24:50] So Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:24:52] My favorite 2023 game I played for the first time in 2024.

[00:24:56] I've been meaning to try it out.

[00:24:58] I've heard nothing but good things.

[00:24:59] I actually started up another D&D campaign with some friends very recently.

[00:25:04] That would fit in well.

[00:25:05] We're not playing the same version of Dungeons & Dragons as Baldur's Gate 3 is.

[00:25:09] I believe they're using D&D 5th version.

[00:25:13] And we're actually playing on 4th right now.

[00:25:15] I like Dungeons & Dragons a lot.

[00:25:17] So I should really give Baldur's Gate 3 a try at some point.

[00:25:20] So Josh, go ahead and share your final Omake Award.

[00:25:24] My final Omake Award is the award for the most Nomura game that's not directed by Tetsuya Nomura.

[00:25:31] And that goes to Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy 7.

[00:25:35] I covered that for my backlog month that I mentioned before.

[00:25:38] And I could have sworn that based off of everything that I've seen in Kingdom Hearts.

[00:25:44] That this would have been written and directed by Tetsuya Nomura.

[00:25:48] But it was not.

[00:25:50] It is one of the most wild games that I've ever played.

[00:25:54] I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed it.

[00:25:57] The gameplay wasn't the most fun or exciting.

[00:25:59] The storyline was just bonkers.

[00:26:03] Doesn't even.

[00:26:03] There's not a strong enough word for the places that this story goes.

[00:26:08] I don't want to spoil anything for those who have not played.

[00:26:10] But it takes Final Fantasy 7 lore and just kind of puts it on steroids.

[00:26:15] And so that's why the most Nomura game not directed by Tetsuya Nomura goes to Dirge of Cerberus.

[00:26:22] I've never played that game.

[00:26:23] I do love Final Fantasy 7.

[00:26:25] But some of the spinoffs are not interesting to me.

[00:26:27] And that's definitely one of the more infamous spinoffs.

[00:26:30] Because during the PS2 era, people were wanting a Final Fantasy 7 remake.

[00:26:34] Or just a continuation of the story, a sequel or something.

[00:26:37] But then we got Dirge of Cerberus.

[00:26:39] Which was a very strange action game.

[00:26:42] And that did not review well.

[00:26:44] Mild spoilers for the listeners.

[00:26:46] Just giving you all a quick forewarning.

[00:26:47] The big plot twist is that the villains in the aftermath of Shinra, there's a group called Deep Ground that has come up.

[00:26:56] There are a bunch of former Shinra scientists and bad guys who are doing shady espionage stuff.

[00:27:02] Every time we take them out, they keep referencing, well, we can't go against this guy, blah, blah, blah.

[00:27:07] The big plot twist is once you finally get to that big bad guy, turns out it wasn't really him the whole time.

[00:27:12] Hojo, Hojo had uploaded his conscience to a computer, got absorbed into this dude and took over him for a little bit.

[00:27:21] He becomes the big bad.

[00:27:23] He's essentially the inciting incident and the main antagonist until you take him out.

[00:27:29] The thing that Hojo creates ends up being the final boss.

[00:27:31] But the explanation for how Hojo comes to possess this poor dude's body makes no sense.

[00:27:38] It almost sounds like he hacked his way in through the life stream at one point.

[00:27:41] The gameplay is serviceable, but in terms of straight story, it's so bad it's good.

[00:27:45] You've got to watch out for Hojo.

[00:27:47] All right, my final Omaka Award, it goes to Best Song Name on Nintendo Music.

[00:27:53] And this award goes to Long Distance Murder from F-Zero X.

[00:27:59] Listeners, if you don't know, Nintendo put out their own kind of Spotify app called Nintendo Music.

[00:28:03] And they're doing a drip feed of maybe once a week they'll add a new soundtrack.

[00:28:07] The most recent one was F-Zero X.

[00:28:11] And yeah, you don't really think about, okay, what's the name of these classic Nintendo songs that you hear many, many times?

[00:28:17] And on F-Zero, they have a lot of them and they have really wild names.

[00:28:21] Ironically, they kind of retranslated the names for some of these songs because originally it was called The Long Distance of Murder.

[00:28:28] But then Nintendo retranslated it to Long Distance Murder, which again is a wild name to have.

[00:28:35] And you would think that maybe Nintendo would want to hide it.

[00:28:37] Oh, let's just call it Sand City Track 2.

[00:28:40] But no, they didn't shy away from the name of the song.

[00:28:44] They said, okay, guys, Long Distance Murder is now on Nintendo Music.

[00:28:48] Go listen to it.

[00:28:49] It is canonical.

[00:28:50] Yes, it's canonical.

[00:28:52] I thought, oh, this is just a weird name for a song.

[00:28:54] First of all, they was ever in a Nintendo game and that Nintendo even went for the effort to retranslate it.

[00:29:00] And they kept the name is really funny to me.

[00:29:03] Long Distance Murder, best song name on Nintendo Music.

[00:29:07] All right.

[00:29:07] So those were our Omake Awards.

[00:29:09] Just a few fun awards we want to give to some games and I guess some apps that really interested us in 2024.

[00:29:16] But now we're going to get into the big boy awards, our games of the year for 2024, going from five to one.

[00:29:23] Josh, what is your fifth favorite game of 2024 or that you played in 2024?

[00:29:29] My number five overall is Horizon Zero Dawn.

[00:29:33] I replayed it because I did an episode on it back in 2020.

[00:29:38] I wanted to replay the game because I got a PS5 and I was like, well, I have to replay Horizon Zero Dawn if I get Forbidden West, which I did get Forbidden West and I barely touched since I beat Horizon Zero Dawn.

[00:29:50] But I replayed Horizon Zero Dawn and it's still wonderful.

[00:29:53] I love the story.

[00:29:54] I love the character of Aloy.

[00:29:56] I love the world.

[00:29:57] The visuals are just stunning.

[00:29:59] The soundtrack is great.

[00:30:00] The gameplay, it very much feels like a PS4 era Sony game.

[00:30:05] And that's for better or worse.

[00:30:07] It doesn't bother me.

[00:30:08] I love this game a lot and love the world.

[00:30:11] I love the idea of these robot animals and the reason they exist, which I won't spoil for the listeners because I actually really like the story in this game.

[00:30:19] I think it's one of the better stories on the PS4 just in gaming in general.

[00:30:23] It was just wonderful.

[00:30:24] And that technically is a 2024 game because they did have a remaster that came out this year on PS5.

[00:30:31] Horizon Zero Dawn remastered.

[00:30:32] So I would count that as a 2024 game.

[00:30:34] Just pretend you played that version.

[00:30:36] Yes, that's exactly the version I played.

[00:30:38] Definitely not the original PS4 version I had seven years ago.

[00:30:42] No.

[00:30:42] Did you mean the Lego Horizon?

[00:30:44] You played that one, right?

[00:30:46] Totally.

[00:30:46] The first Horizon has two different games that came out in 2024 that are different retellings of the first game, which is kind of odd.

[00:30:55] But that's a perfect 2024 game.

[00:30:57] It is back in the cultural mindset.

[00:30:59] A lot of people are thinking about that first Horizon game.

[00:31:01] So I would consider it a 2024 game technically.

[00:31:04] I also played Horizon, the original one on PS4.

[00:31:07] Even today, I would say that it's probably one of the most impressive looking games I've ever played.

[00:31:12] When I first played it in 2019, I thought this is the best looking game ever.

[00:31:17] The visual fidelity is really incredible.

[00:31:20] And the art style, the colors really capture the power of the PS4.

[00:31:23] And I'm sure the PS5 version is maybe equally as good.

[00:31:27] Maybe the PS5 Horizon is secretly the greatest looking game ever.

[00:31:30] I still think where it shows its age the most is when you have conversations with characters in game.

[00:31:37] They're very stilted.

[00:31:39] It feels a little uncanny valley-ish.

[00:31:41] The characters never break eye contact with you.

[00:31:43] There's no blinking when they're speaking to Aloy, which is a little unsettling.

[00:31:48] But other than that, that's more design choices than visual fidelity.

[00:31:52] But still, you can kind of see it.

[00:31:54] Also, I always found the character model for child Aloy when Aloy is a kid.

[00:32:01] For some reason, her head just looks really big compared to the rest of her body.

[00:32:05] I understand toddlers have large heads compared to the rest of their body, but she's not a toddler in that section of the game.

[00:32:12] And two, toddlers' heads aren't that big based on proportion to the rest of their body.

[00:32:16] I don't know.

[00:32:17] Her forehead was as big as her entire face, and I didn't understand that choice.

[00:32:21] But other than that, it's a beautiful game.

[00:32:24] Aloy, I always think about her hair because I wonder, okay, she's living in this post-apocalyptic world.

[00:32:29] How is she taking care of her hair?

[00:32:31] Is she shampooing it every day?

[00:32:32] It must take a lot of maintenance to get that haircut.

[00:32:35] I really want to just go behind the scenes of Aloy taking care of her hair.

[00:32:40] A day in the life of Aloy.

[00:32:42] Yes.

[00:32:43] All right.

[00:32:44] My number five game of the year.

[00:32:46] I think a lot of people might turn off the podcast and they might say, this is not a game.

[00:32:49] But it is a game.

[00:32:50] I'm going to count it.

[00:32:51] And that is Pokemon TCG Pocket from DNA and Creatures, which is a mobile game that just came out maybe a month or so ago on the surface.

[00:33:02] It seems it is just a Pokemon card collecting app almost.

[00:33:06] But there are battles.

[00:33:07] So I consider it a game.

[00:33:09] So you could really just focus on the battle part or you could only focus on the collecting part.

[00:33:14] Or the collecting gameplay part is just you opening packs, which you do have to swipe your finger across the pack and open it, which I guess is technically gameplay where you are opening the physical pack, maybe or maybe not.

[00:33:27] But the battle part is a big reason why I like it.

[00:33:30] And if it didn't have the battle aspect of the game, I wouldn't put it on my top five.

[00:33:34] This is something I've wanted for a long, long time.

[00:33:37] I've wanted another TCG game, video game that I could play.

[00:33:41] Last year on the podcast, I featured the original two Game Boy games.

[00:33:45] One is Japan exclusive.

[00:33:47] And those games are absolutely fantastic.

[00:33:49] They're great adventure games and they're great in highlighting the fun aspects of the Pokemon trading card game, which is a trading card game.

[00:33:56] I really like as a game that you play in terms of battling, not just for collecting.

[00:34:01] A few years ago, I was really into Marvel Snap and I really wanted, oh, if they make a Pokemon Marvel Snap, I will be all about that.

[00:34:08] And this is kind of that.

[00:34:11] I wouldn't say it's as simple as Marvel Snap, but they really did simplify a lot of the rules of the card game.

[00:34:18] The battle mechanics of TCG Pocket are not exactly the same as the normal trading card game you would play physically.

[00:34:25] Or even the old Game Boy games.

[00:34:27] They've streamlined a ton of stuff where you only need three points to win as opposed to the six points you need in the actual game.

[00:34:33] The decks are much smaller, 20 cards instead of 60 cards.

[00:34:37] And they change the actual cards.

[00:34:39] So, for example, the cards in the app are different from the actual physical card, which I think is a really smart idea because you can reimagine the card or buff and nerf the cards at will.

[00:34:48] Really, they're just taking the art from the original TCG, giving an attack that may or may not be on the actual card from the physical version.

[00:34:55] And then they're changing it for the video game.

[00:34:58] This is a really streamlined version of the TCG, but the rule set is still the same.

[00:35:04] So they changed so much about it, but they still managed to capture the fun elements of the TCG battles.

[00:35:10] And just collecting the cards is Pokemon trading card game, easily the best art out of all trading card games.

[00:35:17] Better than Magic, better than Loracana, better than whatever other trading card games are out there.

[00:35:22] The art, they've built up, what, over 20 years of amazing, fantastic art.

[00:35:28] And they're showing it off here, and they just look so beautiful.

[00:35:32] And it's really fun because it's not beholden to the physical decks.

[00:35:36] So, for example, the cards that you can collect now are from the base set, the first ever cards that came out.

[00:35:42] They also have cards from the newer sets, and they have cards from random other sets from the history of TCG.

[00:35:49] But since they rebalanced them, you don't have to worry about, okay, this card is too powerful or this card is useless because they've rebalanced it as a modern game.

[00:35:58] It's really nostalgic to see, oh, this is the Pikachu or the Slowpoke from the base set I had when I was a kid.

[00:36:04] But I can use it in this modern card game.

[00:36:06] And that is a really fun element about why I like it so much.

[00:36:10] So it really nails the battle mechanics.

[00:36:12] It's really great to see all these classic cards again.

[00:36:14] And not just seeing them, but making them usable again in a modern game is really amazing.

[00:36:18] My fifth favorite game is Pokemon TCG Pocket.

[00:36:21] I used to love the Pokemon trading card game.

[00:36:24] So I've been meaning to try it at some point, but just haven't really sat down and bit the bullet.

[00:36:30] Video games that are card-based aren't my cup of tea.

[00:36:33] People love Slay the Spire, and that's a card-based game.

[00:36:36] It's the same reason why I haven't tried Bellatra.

[00:36:38] But every person I've talked to who doesn't like card game-based video games or card-based video games loves Bellatra.

[00:36:46] So eventually I'm going to have to cave and try that as well.

[00:36:49] All right, Josh, go ahead and share your fourth favorite game of 2024.

[00:36:53] This may be controversial to put this low, but my fourth favorite game of 2024 that I played in 2024 is Chrono Trigger.

[00:37:01] I love Chrono Trigger.

[00:37:03] I'm not trying to say it's not a great game.

[00:37:05] Just based off of the other games that I played this year, this is the one I had the fourth most amount of fun with.

[00:37:12] There's not much more I can say about Chrono Trigger that hasn't already been said.

[00:37:15] It was part of Toriyama Month for me earlier this year.

[00:37:18] I had author Aiden Mower on to talk about it because it's his favorite game of all time.

[00:37:23] We had a two-hour conversation all about Chrono Trigger.

[00:37:27] So many things about this game just hit.

[00:37:29] People have said so much about this game, and at the same time, I feel like there's never enough said.

[00:37:34] So I'll try to be brief.

[00:37:36] Every single facet of this game is firing on all cylinders.

[00:37:40] The soundtrack is legendary.

[00:37:42] I don't think that's even controversial to say in any sense of the form.

[00:37:46] Even people who don't like JRPGs likes the soundtrack from Chrono Trigger.

[00:37:50] They acknowledge the soundtrack of Chrono Trigger.

[00:37:54] It's got one of the most fun battle systems I've ever played, especially for when it came out.

[00:37:59] It was so different compared to everything else.

[00:38:01] While the story isn't phenomenal, it is good enough.

[00:38:05] The characters are really where it shines.

[00:38:07] The overarching story isn't that interesting, but what makes the game so interesting are the individual characters and the way they show character story arcs and everything.

[00:38:17] It's just really fun and good.

[00:38:20] I don't know what else to say.

[00:38:21] And we did talk about it earlier this year in our Akira Toriyama episode because his artwork is a major reason why that game is still a classic.

[00:38:29] Number four in 2024.

[00:38:30] That's a pretty fair spot, I would say, considering all the other games you've played this year and all the games that came out.

[00:38:35] So no real complaints here.

[00:38:37] And speaking of good games, my number four game for 2024.

[00:38:41] I'm going to pull the Game Awards and nominate DLC as one of my favorite games of the year.

[00:38:47] And that is Splatoon 3 Side Order.

[00:38:50] The new DLC for Splatoon 3 that came out earlier this year, developed by Nintendo EPD 5.

[00:38:57] And this is actually the only EPD is Nintendo's internal development teams.

[00:39:02] So when you say developed by Nintendo, you're talking about one of their EPD teams.

[00:39:06] And this is actually the only piece of software that Nintendo's internal development teams released in 2024.

[00:39:12] If you look at all the other games Nintendo published this year, they're by other developers.

[00:39:17] Mario and Leiji is from Acquire.

[00:39:19] Nintendo World Championships is from Indie Zero.

[00:39:22] Zelda is from Grezzo.

[00:39:23] EPD did contribute there as well.

[00:39:25] But if we're talking about only developed by an internal Nintendo team, it's only Splatoon 3 Side Order.

[00:39:31] So what else could they possibly be working on?

[00:39:34] Maybe we'll find out next year.

[00:39:36] I'm a huge Splatoon 3 fan.

[00:39:37] It was my game of the year for 2022.

[00:39:39] I had high hopes for the DLC because the Splatoon 2 DLC Octo is also equally amazing.

[00:39:45] And I do admit that Side Order is not as good as Octo, but it is an interesting idea for a piece of DLC for Splatoon 3 because it is a roguelike.

[00:39:55] So it's not just some sort of extra story addition or not some addition to the single player mode.

[00:39:59] So it's kind of its own mode.

[00:40:02] The basic premise is that you go to a different part of the city, this new part of the city.

[00:40:06] Everything is bleached white.

[00:40:08] There's this huge tower and you need to ascend the tower because there's a crazy evil AI.

[00:40:13] If the AI takes over, the whole world, everything will be erased.

[00:40:18] So that's the premise of the game.

[00:40:19] It's basically you've got to go up the tower.

[00:40:20] Yep.

[00:40:22] And the mechanics of the game is that you have a mempad and then you could boost your mempad with different unlockable squares.

[00:40:27] And each swatch is a power up.

[00:40:31] So, for example, your gun attack is maybe 15% faster or your ink damage does 20% more or your little drone buddy can do a new attack.

[00:40:40] So you're basically building up new abilities or strengthening your abilities as you go up each floor.

[00:40:46] The actual rogue elements of the game are a bit they're not that interesting compared to a lot of other roguelikes.

[00:40:53] You're mostly just boosting your attacks and unlocking some special attacks.

[00:40:57] The amazing part of this DLC is that all the different floors are different challenges.

[00:41:02] And these challenges are excellent.

[00:41:05] They are so interesting and oftentimes very difficult but in a fair way.

[00:41:10] And all the enemies are completely brand new.

[00:41:13] Every single enemy is its own brand new thing.

[00:41:16] They have this really cool aesthetic where if you go to an aquarium, there's these fish that kind of live in caves and they don't need to see.

[00:41:24] So they're kind of transparent.

[00:41:26] I'm sure you've seen these before if you've ever been to an aquarium.

[00:41:28] The idea for all these enemies is that they are almost skeletons or those transparent fish.

[00:41:34] So they're black and white and they have these red eyes.

[00:41:37] And the entire game is this very stark black and white color scheme which is very different from Splatoon.

[00:41:44] If you think about Splatoon, it's so colorful.

[00:41:46] But here they've got it really minimalistic and the levels are also this black and white kind of purposefully sterile looking environments.

[00:41:54] Which is very evocative for Splatoon.

[00:41:56] Splatoon.

[00:41:57] All these enemies are really interesting to fight.

[00:41:59] There's one that jumps really high.

[00:42:01] There's one that's the big whale.

[00:42:03] There's one that's kind of like they're on a motorcycle.

[00:42:05] They're running away from you.

[00:42:06] While they're running away from you, during the spawn points, these other enemies are just spawning out of these spawn points.

[00:42:12] So it can get really intense during these challenges.

[00:42:15] And it is a bit difficult.

[00:42:17] You won't beat it the first time.

[00:42:19] When you lose, you can talk to Marina and she can give you some permanent buffs.

[00:42:23] Eventually, even if you're not that great at it,

[00:42:25] you can kind of maybe brute force your way to being so strong that you will eventually beat it.

[00:42:31] So that's kind of a good thing about it.

[00:42:33] It's that it's not like other roguelites where you've got to play it 50 times before you beat it even once.

[00:42:38] I think I beat it after maybe 10 or 11 or 12 tries.

[00:42:44] And each run is about 30 minutes.

[00:42:47] It does take you, not too bad, but it is quite intense.

[00:42:51] It's an intense 30 minutes.

[00:42:52] After I lose a run, I'm done for the day because I don't have the energy to do it again.

[00:42:56] So that's my run for the day.

[00:42:58] And then I'll come back tomorrow and beat it again.

[00:43:01] You can pick your different weapons.

[00:43:02] The main roguelite element comes from not how you build your mempad, but mostly what weapon you go in with.

[00:43:09] The weapons in the platoon are so different.

[00:43:11] The bucket and the super soaker gun is so different how you use it.

[00:43:15] So it does kind of want you to use the different types of mempads or the different types of weapons.

[00:43:19] And that's where the real variety comes in, in terms of your build.

[00:43:22] But for me, I'm really only good with one or two weapons.

[00:43:25] So I was not super interested in switching out the different mempads.

[00:43:30] I was more interested in building up what I was already good with.

[00:43:33] As a roguelite, I think the mechanics are maybe not as strong as other roguelites, but it really excels in the challenge levels.

[00:43:40] What you're doing in each level is really exciting, really intense.

[00:43:43] And I love the aesthetic and the boss fights are awesome.

[00:43:47] It's done something I've never seen in a roguelite before.

[00:43:49] There's a final boss and then there's a final phase to the final boss.

[00:43:53] It just gives you max stats for all your stats.

[00:43:57] Imagine for Slay the Spire, you had every card or like every ability unlocked and then you could just cream the final boss with that ability.

[00:44:06] So that was really fun because you're doing like an absurd amount of damage.

[00:44:09] And after you fought the final boss so many times and it's kicked your butt so many times, the final phase, it just lets you off the leash and you can completely destroy the final boss with max stats.

[00:44:20] That is so fun.

[00:44:22] So Splatoon 3, side order, great DLC.

[00:44:25] So that's why it's in my top five games of the year.

[00:44:28] That's a really cool idea because it's this reward where you're still giving the player agency to make their choices.

[00:44:35] But now all of a sudden you have all of this extra power.

[00:44:38] It's not meant to be a challenge, but it's meant to give the player empowerment.

[00:44:41] And I really wish more games would do stuff like that sparingly.

[00:44:44] Not all the time.

[00:44:45] Don't make games too easy, but use almost a temporary easy mode of reward for something in a game, which would be cool.

[00:44:51] Hmm.

[00:44:51] It's something I've never seen in a roguelike before.

[00:44:53] And I kind of wonder, has it been done before?

[00:44:55] Because it's such a good idea to just give you max stats and let you go crazy.

[00:45:00] All right, Josh.

[00:45:01] So I want to hear about your number three game of 2024.

[00:45:05] Tunic.

[00:45:06] The indie is almost a Zelda Souls type of game.

[00:45:09] Have you played Tunic at all, Mono?

[00:45:11] Yes, I actually did.

[00:45:13] And I beat it.

[00:45:13] And I did talk about it on the podcast a year or two ago or whenever it came out on Switch.

[00:45:17] That's when I played it.

[00:45:18] I love this game.

[00:45:20] I was so pleasantly surprised by it.

[00:45:22] I got a physical copy of it from Fangamer.

[00:45:25] I bought it and I loved every minute of it.

[00:45:30] It's one of those games where it kind of is tough for podcasting because with the podcast, you want to talk about all the gameplay mechanics and the story.

[00:45:39] But almost every element of this game is a spoiler.

[00:45:42] You don't want to talk too much about the mechanics because the way the game reveals its gameplay mechanics is kind of the spoiler.

[00:45:53] Generally, you don't want to spoil a story.

[00:45:55] But in Tunic, you don't want to spoil what all your different abilities are because the way you get them is interesting and unique.

[00:46:03] It's one of those games where a lot of your abilities are given to you at the very beginning, but you don't know you have those abilities yet because you haven't been taught how to use them or what button combinations you need to do it.

[00:46:18] And I think that's really cool and it makes the gameplay super interesting.

[00:46:23] It makes the level design much more interesting because you have to design it in a way for experienced players to know how all the mechanics work to still give them a challenge, but also make it accessible to newer players who don't know all your mechanics yet.

[00:46:40] And the way the game does teach it to you, this is okay to not spoil this or to spoil this, is that it gives you a Zelda style manual, but you find pieces of it throughout the game world.

[00:46:52] As you get more pieces of the manual, you get pieces of the story.

[00:46:55] You also get more gameplay abilities because the mechanics are already there.

[00:47:00] But until you get the missing manual piece, you don't know you have those abilities.

[00:47:04] And it's such a really interestingly designed game from that perspective.

[00:47:10] I loved it.

[00:47:11] I love the art style.

[00:47:12] Once you get into the world and look at the lore is really interesting because it doesn't answer a lot of questions and allows your imagination to run wild.

[00:47:21] It's a wonderful game.

[00:47:23] If you like Zelda games, and it's got some souls.

[00:47:27] I'm not a huge Souls fan, but I've played a chunk of the original Dark Souls.

[00:47:31] It's got a similar progression mechanic where if you refresh at a campfire, all the enemies respawn.

[00:47:39] But you also get all your health back.

[00:47:41] If you die, you go back to the last place that you refreshed.

[00:47:43] And so they're kind of checkpoints as you go.

[00:47:46] So it's got a lot of that type of influence, but I loved it still.

[00:47:50] Even not being a Soulsborne fan, I really loved playing Tunic.

[00:47:53] It was one of the most rewarding experiences I had this year.

[00:47:56] And I remember posting about it on Blue Sky where I keep track of how many games I beat each year.

[00:48:02] I think I'm up to 24 this year, which is better than I was expecting considering I'm a dad and I do the podcast consistently.

[00:48:10] I've beaten 24 games this year.

[00:48:11] This was one of the 24 and it was one of the games that when I posted about it, I even said,

[00:48:17] it's been a long time since a game hooked me to the point where I was doing worse at work because I was so excited to go home and play more Tunic.

[00:48:25] So I loved it.

[00:48:26] Yeah, it's a really unique game.

[00:48:28] Everyone said it is Zelda inspired, but it definitely does a lot of things that aren't in Zelda and it really separates itself from Zelda.

[00:48:34] And it is quite hard.

[00:48:35] That's definitely one of the more frustrating elements is that you will die quite a lot in this game.

[00:48:40] But I think my favorite element is definitely the manual because not only do you get pages,

[00:48:45] but then the game eventually teaches you how to look at the manual in a new way or notice things that you didn't notice before.

[00:48:52] I always wonder, do kids these days or maybe younger gamers, do they know what this is?

[00:48:58] Do they know that it's a callback to manuals in other games?

[00:49:01] Or do they think that this is just some sort of weird thing the game made up?

[00:49:04] But the manual is really interesting.

[00:49:06] How it teaches you.

[00:49:07] You have skills that you don't know you have and the game is just waiting for you to figure it out.

[00:49:12] Especially once they reveal like the Holy Cross.

[00:49:14] That's a really mind-blowing moment.

[00:49:16] That's such a great idea that it tells you so many times about it.

[00:49:21] But then when you realize what you need to do, it's quite genius.

[00:49:25] It's just such a unique game.

[00:49:26] It's a game that revolves around secrets.

[00:49:29] And you're saying how even just teaching you to read the manual in a different way is a secret in and of itself.

[00:49:34] It's just wonderful.

[00:49:35] I can't say enough kind of things about it.

[00:49:37] All right.

[00:49:37] My number three, speaking of Zelda-inspired games, my third favorite game of 2024 is The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom from Grezzo, who made the Link's Awakening remake.

[00:49:48] They also did the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Fast remake.

[00:49:52] And they have some other games under their belt, but they're mostly known for their Zelda remakes.

[00:49:57] And they finally got to make a brand new Zelda game starring Zelda first ever in the mainline Zelda series.

[00:50:05] And this is a game I had a lot of high expectations for because Link's Awakening is my favorite 2D Zelda.

[00:50:11] I really enjoyed their remake.

[00:50:13] This is borrowing a lot of ideas from Tears of the Kingdom, which I would say is my favorite 3D Zelda.

[00:50:18] So we have my favorite 2D Zelda, my favorite 3D Zelda.

[00:50:21] They're putting together.

[00:50:22] It didn't quite dethrone Link's Awakening as my favorite 2D Zelda.

[00:50:25] But what it did do is that it introduced a lot of really awesome ideas that I want to see expanded upon in the future.

[00:50:31] If Grezzo's next game is Echoes of Wisdom 2, I would be very excited.

[00:50:35] This game has a lot of mechanics that I've never seen in any game, period.

[00:50:38] The highlight is definitely the Echo system, where you can make a copy out of many things in the world.

[00:50:43] There's over 100 items that you can collect.

[00:50:45] And they summon them in the world to either fight enemies, solve puzzles, traverse the world.

[00:50:51] There's so many different uses you could have for them.

[00:50:54] And all the items are really fun to use.

[00:50:58] And there's no penalty in using them.

[00:51:00] You do have like a limit.

[00:51:01] When you first start off, you have three triangles.

[00:51:03] And for example, this enemy will be one triangle.

[00:51:07] And then another enemy will be two triangles.

[00:51:09] But by the end of the game, you have five or six triangles.

[00:51:11] So you could really just summon five or six of these one triangle enemies.

[00:51:15] A bunch of stakes, two or three of these big boy enemies.

[00:51:18] One super powerful enemy.

[00:51:20] Or a bunch of beds and make a staircase.

[00:51:23] There are just so many fun ideas with the Echo system.

[00:51:26] And it's not limiting at all.

[00:51:27] There's no cooldown.

[00:51:28] You could summon a Moblin.

[00:51:29] And then if you don't want him there, just summon him again somewhere else.

[00:51:32] Or if he dies, just summon him again.

[00:51:35] They really take off the shackles when it comes to this mechanic.

[00:51:39] And I have seen some people complain about it in terms of,

[00:51:42] oh, the Echo didn't do what I wanted it to do.

[00:51:44] Or the pathing was a bit weird.

[00:51:46] But you can just resummon it.

[00:51:48] There's no penalty at all.

[00:51:49] I really love the freedom it gave you.

[00:51:51] Because it really is an open world 2D Zelda game.

[00:51:54] You can pretty much go anywhere you want from the start of the game.

[00:51:58] By the halfway point, some obstacles are blocking you.

[00:52:00] And some story elements don't kick in until the midway point of the game.

[00:52:06] So the second half of the game is much more open in terms of where you can go than the first half.

[00:52:10] But you would be surprised about where you can go from the start of the game.

[00:52:14] And it has the classic 2D Zelda dungeons.

[00:52:16] I think maybe the earlier ones are a bit weaker.

[00:52:19] But the later dungeons are excellent.

[00:52:21] They feel like classic Zelda dungeons from the past games.

[00:52:24] Something that a lot of people have wanted.

[00:52:26] Because the dungeons in the 3D Zelda games are a bit different from the classic dungeons of A Link to the Past.

[00:52:32] But the old school A Link to the Past style dungeons are in this game.

[00:52:36] And they do a great job with them.

[00:52:37] Really interesting ideas that take advantage of the ecosystem.

[00:52:41] They made a classic 2D Zelda game.

[00:52:44] But it's connected to this awesome idea that I've never seen in any game before.

[00:52:48] You can summon a bunch of random objects or enemies.

[00:52:51] And it has a ton of personality.

[00:52:53] You play as Zelda.

[00:52:54] And they do a lot of fun things with the fact that you are Zelda.

[00:52:58] She does things that Link could never do in terms of lore or story.

[00:53:02] I don't want to really ruin it.

[00:53:03] But there's some things that only Zelda could do in terms of the Zelda lore.

[00:53:08] And they take advantage of it in this game.

[00:53:10] And there are all these really fun scenarios.

[00:53:13] You fight Link in the game.

[00:53:15] So that's a fun idea.

[00:53:16] That, okay, if you fight Link, how are you going to defeat him?

[00:53:19] That's something you never had to think about before.

[00:53:21] Of course, you fight Dark Link in the past Zelda games.

[00:53:23] But you have your sword and shield.

[00:53:25] And then Dark Link has his sword and shield.

[00:53:27] But if you're a Zelda and you can just summon a pot, how are you going to fight Link?

[00:53:31] That's a really fun puzzle combat scenario.

[00:53:35] And it's just a really great game that they really excelled at.

[00:53:38] If I had to criticize it, I would say that the world, the open world, there's a lot of kind of nothing areas where there's not a whole lot there.

[00:53:48] I think it's maybe a bit too big.

[00:53:50] They kind of truncated the world a little bit more.

[00:53:52] Just take out some of the fluff in the overworld.

[00:53:54] If they just made it a bit tighter, I think it would have been even a better game.

[00:53:58] But as it is now, I think it's a really great game.

[00:54:01] It's a really creative game.

[00:54:02] And I would love to see an Echoes of Wisdom 2.

[00:54:05] So Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, my third favorite game of 2024.

[00:54:09] Once again, you mentioned Echoes of Wisdom in the Omake Awards.

[00:54:13] So I don't have much more to add to it other than that.

[00:54:16] I just really want to play this game at some point, man.

[00:54:18] It just sounds great.

[00:54:20] Yeah, it's really wonderful.

[00:54:21] It has a lot of cool ideas.

[00:54:23] I don't really have a lot of complaints.

[00:54:24] It is a Zelda game.

[00:54:25] So you're going in with the idea that this better be a 10 out of 10 generational masterpiece.

[00:54:30] And it's not a 10 out of 10.

[00:54:32] I'll admit that.

[00:54:33] But it just has a lot of fun ideas that were executed very well in the game.

[00:54:38] It has a lot of personality.

[00:54:39] It looks great.

[00:54:40] I really love this art style.

[00:54:42] If you want a classic Zelda game, this is that.

[00:54:45] But also it has so many fresh ideas.

[00:54:48] There's definitely room to improve.

[00:54:50] But I think this is a great start.

[00:54:52] If they want to make this its own sub series of Zelda, where you just play as Zelda, this is a great start to that.

[00:54:58] All right, Josh, tell me what is your second favorite game of 2024?

[00:55:03] Second favorite game is another one from my backlog month.

[00:55:07] This one might surprise some listeners.

[00:55:09] It's Donkey Kong Country.

[00:55:11] Okay.

[00:55:11] I have dabbled in Donkey Kong Country.

[00:55:14] Well, now I've fully beaten it.

[00:55:16] But before playing it for the show, I had only played a little bit of it.

[00:55:20] I usually get past the first zone, beat all the levels in the first zone and get to the second.

[00:55:25] But because I had to cover it for the show, I'm like, all right, I need to sit down and finish this.

[00:55:29] And the reason I'm putting it so high is I honestly was beyond impressed at how much the game still holds up.

[00:55:38] I think the platforming is a lot of fun.

[00:55:40] It's very challenging.

[00:55:42] The soundtrack is phenomenal.

[00:55:44] I really love the platforming.

[00:55:46] It still feels good.

[00:55:47] It's still fun.

[00:55:48] I know people kind of give the visuals now a little bit of crap, especially when you up-res them.

[00:55:53] I still think they look okay.

[00:55:55] I think they look phenomenal on an old CRT tube television.

[00:55:59] It looks beautiful.

[00:56:00] I didn't grow up with Donkey Kong Country, but I loved it.

[00:56:04] I was so amazed by how fair it still felt even after all these years.

[00:56:08] And so that's why I propelled it all the way up to number two for me.

[00:56:11] I just had an immense amount of fun with the game.

[00:56:13] I really enjoyed it.

[00:56:14] Are you excited about the Donkey Kong Country expansion to Universal Studios?

[00:56:19] Because it's Donkey Kong, yes.

[00:56:20] But in general, no.

[00:56:21] Not because of Donkey Kong or anything like that.

[00:56:23] It's because to go to Universal Studios, it is so much money for me.

[00:56:28] I live in the northeastern portion of the United States.

[00:56:32] You're looking at a minimum 18 to 20-hour drive.

[00:56:35] And flying would be much quicker.

[00:56:37] You could do that basically in a day.

[00:56:39] But then that costs money and the hotels are so expensive.

[00:56:42] There is no reasonable way that I could justify spending that amount of money just to go see

[00:56:49] Donkey Kong.

[00:56:50] So am I excited for it?

[00:56:52] No, because I can't afford to see it.

[00:56:55] Yeah, even for me, you do have to plan quite a bit to head over to USJ.

[00:56:59] When I think of Donkey Kong Country, I think maybe the highlight is definitely the soundtrack.

[00:57:03] That's the thing that sticks out best to me.

[00:57:05] And yes, the classic soundtrack, there have been many awesome renditions.

[00:57:08] But even that original OSD from that first game is still really amazing.

[00:57:13] And it still stands up today.

[00:57:14] Agreed, man.

[00:57:15] I love it.

[00:57:16] I mean, people talk aquatic ambience all the time, but I actually always just love the first level a lot.

[00:57:21] It's great.

[00:57:22] All right.

[00:57:22] My number two game of the year.

[00:57:24] It is also a platformer, but it is Astro Bot from Team Asobi.

[00:57:29] There it is.

[00:57:30] So you played Astro's Playroom.

[00:57:32] And yeah, you seem to like Astro's Playroom as a whole.

[00:57:34] Oh, it's wonderful.

[00:57:35] I didn't get to play the newest one, but Playroom just was, I was blown away by it.

[00:57:41] I just loved all the different ideas, all the homages to previous PlayStation franchises.

[00:57:46] My only real criticism was that when they relied so much, because the whole purpose of Astro's

[00:57:52] Playroom was supposed to be a tech demo of what the PS5 controller can do.

[00:57:56] And when they let the tech demo part get a little bit too much involved, specifically those rock

[00:58:03] climbing sections where you have to alternate back and forth with the adaptive triggers,

[00:58:07] that wasn't necessarily that fun to me because it's slow.

[00:58:11] And on top of that, it doesn't feel that responsive to me.

[00:58:14] It was cool from a technical standpoint, but not that much fun from a gameplay standpoint.

[00:58:19] But other than that, I just loved everything about it.

[00:58:21] It was just so charming.

[00:58:22] And the final boss was a lot of fun.

[00:58:24] It's funny.

[00:58:25] My three-year-old daughter watched me play it, and she thought it was cool until it got

[00:58:30] to the dragon.

[00:58:31] And that scared her so bad that now she gets freaked out, even if I'm not at the dragon.

[00:58:36] Don't play the dragon game, daddy.

[00:58:38] You can't do that.

[00:58:39] I agree with you on the monkey is the one that alternates the timing.

[00:58:43] And I would say that's maybe the worst part of the game.

[00:58:45] But the other parts of the game are excellent because when I play Astro's Playroom, I was

[00:58:50] skeptical about if you did stretch this out to a full-blown game, does it get tiring

[00:58:55] quickly?

[00:58:56] Because the Playroom, it really relies on a lot of the power-ups.

[00:58:59] And I thought, okay, it's just the core mechanics of controlling Astro.

[00:59:03] Is that good enough to flesh out an entire game?

[00:59:06] And if not, you would have to introduce a lot of interesting power-ups to the game.

[00:59:10] And fortunately, they do.

[00:59:11] I think my favorite one is they only use it for one level.

[00:59:14] And I understand why because it was probably a nightmare to actually implement.

[00:59:19] But it is the mouse power-up where you can grow big and grow small just with the press

[00:59:25] of a button.

[00:59:25] So your normal Astro size, and then if you press a button, you shrink down to the size of like

[00:59:30] a tiny mouse.

[00:59:31] You just shrink down to the mouse and the level is instantly huge.

[00:59:34] This is a really mind-blowing level.

[00:59:36] I think a lot of people agree that this is the best level in the game, but this is the

[00:59:41] only time they use this power-up.

[00:59:43] It never comes up again, but it's a very, very memorable level.

[00:59:46] And there's another awesome power-up.

[00:59:47] Fortunately, they do use more than once, but it's a time-stop mechanic or I guess time-slowing,

[00:59:53] but it's like maybe 1% speed.

[00:59:55] So it's basically stopping time.

[00:59:57] There's no possible way you could jump over it with your normal speed.

[01:00:00] But if you stop time, you can see that the cards the enemy is throwing at you become

[01:00:06] platforms.

[01:00:06] So you can just jump on the platforms or these spinning things that are going so fast.

[01:00:12] If you stop time, then you can navigate through it much, much easier.

[01:00:16] So there's a lot of really fun power-ups in the game.

[01:00:18] I was thinking about Super Mario RPG from last year.

[01:00:21] That's a game where every second was fun.

[01:00:24] There's no fat in that game.

[01:00:26] Every moment is fun.

[01:00:28] Astro Bot is very similar where there's no fat to this game.

[01:00:32] Everything you're doing is fun.

[01:00:33] There's no down moments or there's nothing where it slows down or becomes boring or you

[01:00:38] need to grind or do whatever.

[01:00:40] Everything you're doing is really exciting.

[01:00:42] Every level that you go to, oh, this is just another great level with some sort of fun

[01:00:47] mechanic or some fun power-up.

[01:00:49] It never lets up.

[01:00:50] It never slows down.

[01:00:51] It just keeps introducing good idea after good idea.

[01:00:55] And then it ends.

[01:00:56] It didn't feel bloated at all.

[01:00:57] Everything was how long it needed to be.

[01:01:00] So it knows when to get in and it knows when to get out.

[01:01:02] I 100% did the game.

[01:01:04] So I got all the little bots, which are fun to collect.

[01:01:06] There are so many great callbacks to classic Sony franchises.

[01:01:09] A lot of really obscure deep cuts that even I did not know that I had to look up.

[01:01:14] And I don't want to say I'm the expert of video games or anything, but I do appreciate

[01:01:18] it when they introduce some character or something that I don't know about.

[01:01:22] It makes me excited that this is something I didn't know about from PlayStation's history

[01:01:26] or from Japanese gaming history at all.

[01:01:29] There's definitely a lot of things I still don't know.

[01:01:31] So I'm really excited when I'm reminded of that.

[01:01:34] Unfortunately, Square was very stingy.

[01:01:36] So there's no Square characters in the game.

[01:01:38] But other than that, there's a lot of really great callbacks, a lot of fun bots that you

[01:01:42] can rescue.

[01:01:42] I guess the downside is that, oh, rescuing the non-PlayStation branded Astro bots is

[01:01:47] a little boring because they're just generic looking bots.

[01:01:50] I want to rescue the fun.

[01:01:51] I want to rescue Crash Bandicoot.

[01:01:53] I want to rescue Ratchet.

[01:01:54] I want to rescue those guys.

[01:01:55] I'm rescuing them by obligation only.

[01:01:58] At the end of each world, there's a PlayStation themed level you come across.

[01:02:02] And the first one is Ape Escape.

[01:02:04] You're playing Ape Escape where you catch the monkeys.

[01:02:07] It has the spinning camera from the first game and the humor of Ape Escape.

[01:02:11] I thought, wow, this is awesome.

[01:02:13] Then there's a PS2 themed one, a PS3 themed one, a PS4 themed one.

[01:02:17] These are great, but the Ape Escape one is definitely the best one.

[01:02:20] You can definitely tell the developers of the game love PlayStation and made a really

[01:02:26] excellent 3D platformer.

[01:02:28] If I had to criticize it, I think controlling Astro by himself is kind of simple.

[01:02:33] He doesn't really have a lot of moves.

[01:02:35] He just has a basic jump and a hover, which can be a crutch at times.

[01:02:40] And when it comes to 3D platforming or platforming in general, I kind of want that Twitch platforming.

[01:02:46] I don't want to have a get out of jail free card.

[01:02:49] Sometimes they do make the level kind of designed around the hover where you do need to hover

[01:02:53] to make the jump.

[01:02:55] Or they make it where your hover actually kind of breaks part of the platform.

[01:03:00] So you need to be careful.

[01:03:01] Those ideas are really fun to use.

[01:03:03] But controlling Astro by himself is a little simple.

[01:03:05] For example, if you compare Mario Odyssey's Mario moveset to Astro moveset, it is really

[01:03:12] night and day.

[01:03:13] Mario can just do so much more.

[01:03:15] But again, I think it's kind of unfair to compare this fairly newcomer Astro to Mario

[01:03:20] in terms of platforming prowess.

[01:03:23] But even that it gets even somewhat close to Mario Odyssey means that it's in the upper

[01:03:28] echelon of 3D platformers.

[01:03:30] This is definitely one of the best 3D platformers I've played.

[01:03:33] Not quite Mario tier, but hey, nobody is.

[01:03:36] Only Mario is.

[01:03:37] Astro Bot, I don't get a whole lot of time to play my PS5 just because of my living situation.

[01:03:42] If there is a game that I really want to play, it better be great.

[01:03:46] I have to really adjust my schedule to even try to get some PS5 gameplay time.

[01:03:51] And this really exceeded my expectations.

[01:03:53] So Astro Bot, my second favorite game of 2024.

[01:03:56] What was one of the little cameos that surprised you?

[01:04:00] Because now you've piqued my interest.

[01:04:02] I am very curious.

[01:04:03] One is from a game called Devil Dice, which is like this isometric puzzle game that was

[01:04:08] only on PlayStation 1.

[01:04:10] I've never seen this character before in my life.

[01:04:11] And I'm like, what is Devil Dice?

[01:04:14] This is a really deep cut.

[01:04:15] Another one is from a Japan only PS1 racing game that is totally in my wheelhouse of things

[01:04:22] that I would possibly cover on the podcast in the future.

[01:04:26] They didn't really have a mandate in terms of, oh, you got to put in the Nathan Drake

[01:04:58] bot.

[01:04:59] There are a lot of PlayStation-associated characters in here.

[01:05:02] Jill from Resident Evil is in here as a bot.

[01:05:05] But Square did not want to play ball.

[01:05:07] So there's no Cloud.

[01:05:08] There's no Sephiroth.

[01:05:09] But that's not Team Asobi's fault.

[01:05:11] That is Square's fault.

[01:05:12] So send your email to Square.

[01:05:13] I'm sure they would definitely love to have put a Cloud bot in here somewhere.

[01:05:18] But otherwise, Astro Bot, a love letter to PlayStation, and just a great 3D platformer

[01:05:22] all around.

[01:05:23] So Josh, now is the time.

[01:05:25] I want to hear about what is your favorite game of 2024?

[01:05:29] Well, it's funny.

[01:05:31] You mentioned it just when you were talking about Astro Bot.

[01:05:34] It is Super Mario RPG.

[01:05:37] Specifically, the 2023 remake.

[01:05:39] I bought it.

[01:05:40] I beat it.

[01:05:40] I want to say about three or four days ago at the time we're recording this.

[01:05:45] And I had bought it less than a week prior to that.

[01:05:48] I burned through that.

[01:05:49] It's a much shorter game than I remember it being.

[01:05:52] It's only 12 hours long, but kind of lends into what you were saying before, Mono, how there's

[01:05:56] very little fad on it.

[01:05:57] It's a very straightforward experience.

[01:06:00] And man, the whole time I was just grinning ear to ear.

[01:06:04] I loved every minute of it.

[01:06:05] There is no nostalgia for this game for me either.

[01:06:08] I did not grow up with Super Mario RPG.

[01:06:10] I played it for the first time, I want to say, in maybe 2014, 2015, and I beat it.

[01:06:17] And they definitely make the remake a lot easier.

[01:06:20] I don't want to give all of my thoughts because I teased it on one of my Twitch streams earlier.

[01:06:26] I'm going to tease it here as well.

[01:06:27] I do Mario Month every year on my show, which Mono you have been a part of.

[01:06:31] And I pick a different Mario theme each year for Mario Month.

[01:06:35] And this year, it's going to be all Mario RPG games.

[01:06:39] So I'm not going to list all the games that I'm going to be covering.

[01:06:41] You can kind of take your pick.

[01:06:42] But one of them is Super Mario RPG.

[01:06:46] I beat that game very quickly because Mario Month RPGs are going to take me a little bit of time.

[01:06:51] And there are five Sundays in March next year, which means I have to play through five RPGs

[01:06:57] over the course of a couple months and record everything.

[01:06:59] My time is very limited with it.

[01:07:01] But I played through Super Mario RPG.

[01:07:03] And spoiler alert for whenever I do that episode, it was just wonderful.

[01:07:07] Everything about it, the quality of life improvements they made,

[01:07:11] I did think they actually made it a little too easy in some spots.

[01:07:14] But I do think the quality of life improvements they made did help out with some of the more garbage parts of it.

[01:07:20] Specifically, I'm thinking of the Axum Rangers.

[01:07:23] In the original game, those guys were so difficult.

[01:07:27] I had such a hard time with them in the original game.

[01:07:30] Maybe it was just me, though.

[01:07:31] Maybe I just wasn't prepping the right way.

[01:07:33] I didn't have the right party composition.

[01:07:35] I don't know.

[01:07:35] But I had such a hard time with them.

[01:07:38] This time around, it wasn't even a challenge.

[01:07:41] I loved playing it again.

[01:07:42] It was wonderful.

[01:07:43] I can't say enough kind things about it.

[01:07:45] And also, my God, the soundtrack was already good on the original.

[01:07:49] Yoko Shimomura, fantastic legendary composer.

[01:07:52] Hearing her work done with full orchestration brought a smile to my face.

[01:07:57] Even my wife, who's not really big into video games or video game music,

[01:08:00] because she finds it too repetitive, really enjoyed the soundtrack.

[01:08:03] It was great.

[01:08:04] I really loved the remake.

[01:08:05] I also don't have any sort of nostalgia for Super Mario RPG.

[01:08:09] I played a little bit of the SNES version.

[01:08:11] My first time really playing the game was last year's remake.

[01:08:13] And it was on my top five of last year as well.

[01:08:16] And it's just a great game from start to finish.

[01:08:19] So many awesome ideas are in Super Mario RPG.

[01:08:21] Think of just all the weird one-off things you do, like the mine cart race.

[01:08:25] There's an island where you can talk to Yoshis,

[01:08:28] but you have to ride a Yoshi in order to talk to the Yoshis.

[01:08:31] That's just like a really funny idea.

[01:08:34] That's only in this one specific part.

[01:08:36] There's another mini game where you have to dodge these barrels.

[01:08:39] And I'm thinking about Booster's Tower and all the weird stuff you do in there.

[01:08:43] It really captures what's so fun about JRPGs in general.

[01:08:47] Super Mario RPG, definitely a really great game.

[01:08:49] A classic game.

[01:08:50] The new soundtrack is just amazing.

[01:08:53] Probably my favorite soundtrack from last year.

[01:08:55] Maybe in the past few years, to be honest.

[01:08:58] It's great, man.

[01:08:58] And I agree.

[01:08:59] I actually like that AOE thing with perfect timing.

[01:09:02] I agree with that update.

[01:09:03] It was more like the super moves they added in, which just felt after a while.

[01:09:08] That was also a reward for perfect timing.

[01:09:10] But I don't know.

[01:09:11] It just made it a little too easy.

[01:09:13] But for those who have never played an RPG or a JRPG,

[01:09:16] it's a really perfect entry point because it is very accessible.

[01:09:20] I loved it.

[01:09:21] It's great.

[01:09:22] All right.

[01:09:22] My game of the year for 2024.

[01:09:24] 2024.

[01:09:25] It is one I've actually talked about on the podcast before, but not a whole lot.

[01:09:28] I played more of it after I talked about it,

[01:09:30] but I did praise it quite a bit on the podcast.

[01:09:32] And this is actually a Western developed game.

[01:09:35] So even though I am Tokyo Game Life and I'm 99% of the time,

[01:09:39] I'm talking about Japanese developed games.

[01:09:42] And all the games on my list so far have been developed in Japan.

[01:09:45] But one game, a Western game, managed to crack my top five

[01:09:50] and get to the number one spot.

[01:09:52] And that is none other than 2024 indie hit Balatro from solo developer Local Thunk.

[01:10:02] So you mentioned Balatro earlier on in the podcast,

[01:10:04] and I didn't want to reveal my hand.

[01:10:06] Good one.

[01:10:07] That was a good pun.

[01:10:07] I like that one.

[01:10:08] Is it Balatro?

[01:10:09] I don't know.

[01:10:10] I'm just going to say Balatro because that's what I've been saying.

[01:10:12] Balatro is my favorite game of 2024.

[01:10:14] One that a year ago I had never heard of.

[01:10:17] I was not looking forward to,

[01:10:19] oh, I can't wait till Balatro comes out.

[01:10:20] Well, I just heard about it on some podcasts and then I checked the eShop and,

[01:10:25] oh, it was released that day.

[01:10:27] I bought it because so many podcasts were talking about it.

[01:10:30] And then I instantly fell in love with it.

[01:10:32] I praised it quite a bit on the podcast.

[01:10:34] So now is my time to really get into it.

[01:10:36] But Balatro, if you've never played it, listeners,

[01:10:38] it is a poker themed roguelike where you have the typical deck of 52 cards

[01:10:43] and you are trying to make hands from poker and you're trying to get a point total.

[01:10:48] Every round has a point total that you need to max.

[01:10:51] And you get a certain amount of attempts per round to exceed the points.

[01:10:57] Each hand has a certain amount of points.

[01:10:59] Each card has a certain amount of points to it.

[01:11:01] For example, a three of a kind is going to be more than a pair

[01:11:04] because that's just a more rare hand.

[01:11:07] And a pair of queens is better than a pair of twos, right?

[01:11:11] Because queen is just a much higher card in poker.

[01:11:14] Now, the fun of this game comes from breaking the game

[01:11:18] where you can make it to where a full house is weaker than a pair.

[01:11:23] Or you can change it to where your strongest card is actually a two,

[01:11:27] not an ace or a king.

[01:11:30] And the way you do this is through the jokers.

[01:11:32] You get these jokers that you can put kind of on the top of the screen,

[01:11:35] but think of it like equipment slots.

[01:11:37] By default, you have five.

[01:11:38] But hey, this game is all about breaking the rules of the game.

[01:11:42] The core tenets of the game is that you play poker hands and get points.

[01:11:46] So you're thinking, okay, I want to get full house.

[01:11:49] I want to get four of a kind.

[01:11:50] I want to get straight.

[01:11:51] Those are the classic high scoring hands in poker.

[01:11:55] No, what you're trying to do is you're trying to manipulate the game

[01:11:58] to where it gives you points for how you want to play.

[01:12:01] So for example, through the jokers in my equipment slots,

[01:12:04] I got a joker that gives bonus points for two pairs.

[01:12:07] So now two pairs is much stronger than a full house or it's much stronger than four of a kind.

[01:12:12] If I play only clubs, then that's much stronger than the other hands or the other pairs.

[01:12:18] By default, the game gives me five joker slots.

[01:12:21] I got this item that let me have six joker slots.

[01:12:25] So now I can have more jokers than the game allows.

[01:12:28] By default, I have four attempts per round to beat the score.

[01:12:32] Oh, I used an item and now I have five attempts per round to get the score.

[01:12:35] Okay.

[01:12:36] And so you're just kind of manipulating the rules of the game.

[01:12:39] That way, every time you play is totally different based on the jokers you equip.

[01:12:44] Jokers are really your X factor and how you manipulate the points of the game.

[01:12:48] There are so many jokers.

[01:12:49] I want to say 150 jokers.

[01:12:51] It's not just that, but also the joker combos.

[01:12:54] So some of my favorite jokers, there's one called blueprint,

[01:12:58] which copies the joker to the right of it.

[01:13:00] And you can rearrange the jokers.

[01:13:02] This super powerful joker, you could technically have a copy of it if you have the blueprint.

[01:13:07] And this feels like it shouldn't be allowed because this card is too strong.

[01:13:11] But the game is not about restricting you at all.

[01:13:13] I was talking about Echoes of Wisdom earlier, which really excels in its freedom.

[01:13:17] And Bellacho really excels in its freedom as well,

[01:13:20] in that it doesn't try to stop you from doing anything.

[01:13:22] It wants you to break the game.

[01:13:24] It wants you to manipulate the rules of poker.

[01:13:26] I had one round that I won and I was only playing high card.

[01:13:30] I was only playing one card every hand, which is absurd.

[01:13:34] In real poker, you would never just play, oh, I have a three and then I win.

[01:13:38] That's not going to happen in real poker.

[01:13:40] But in this game, because my jokers made it to where,

[01:13:44] oh, if I only play one card, I get a bonus.

[01:13:46] And then I buff my high card point total to some absurd amount.

[01:13:50] So actually my strongest hand was just playing a high card over and over again.

[01:13:55] It's so absurd how crazy you can make your deck.

[01:13:59] But your deck can now have 10 aces or your deck can have no aces.

[01:14:03] And you get bonus for having no face cards in your deck.

[01:14:06] And your starter decks are so interesting in that,

[01:14:09] okay, this starter deck gives you extra money to start with.

[01:14:12] This starter deck is kind of like a debuff.

[01:14:15] So it's almost a challenge where you can't do any discards.

[01:14:18] And this starter deck, oh, there are no face cards in the deck.

[01:14:22] It's only numbers.

[01:14:23] And you might think, how am I supposed to win without an ace?

[01:14:26] How am I supposed to win without king, queen, and jack?

[01:14:29] But if you get the right setup, you don't even need those face cards.

[01:14:33] Because you're just playing the numbered cards.

[01:14:35] Or you're just playing only six of clubs.

[01:14:37] That's the card you're playing every round that buffs your point total.

[01:14:41] So Blotro is totally addictive.

[01:14:44] And I would highly recommend this game to people who,

[01:14:46] even if you don't like card games, even if you don't like poker,

[01:14:49] that's really just the window dressing.

[01:14:51] Because the fun of the game is not, oh, I got a full house.

[01:14:56] No, because there's nothing inherently fun about getting a full house.

[01:14:59] What's fun about the game is manipulating your deck

[01:15:02] to where you are just shattering the rules of the game.

[01:15:05] If you get a really high point total,

[01:15:07] the little box that counts your points, it catches on fire.

[01:15:10] So it does feel like you're breaking the game,

[01:15:13] which is just so fun.

[01:15:15] And the game doesn't punish you at all.

[01:15:16] And in fact, it rewards you for breaking the game.

[01:15:19] Because it does get quite hard later on.

[01:15:22] There is an escalation of, oh, this round you need 1,000 points.

[01:15:25] While the next round you need 8,000 points.

[01:15:28] And then I think the final round you need a million points.

[01:15:31] And you have four attempts by default to get a million points.

[01:15:35] So you're thinking, okay, I need every hand,

[01:15:37] I need 250,000 points.

[01:15:40] And you're trying to do the calculations about,

[01:15:42] okay, can I get that amount of points in this hand?

[01:15:45] But I've had times where I beat the game.

[01:15:47] One hand I put down is 10 million points.

[01:15:50] I just completely destroyed the final boss of the game

[01:15:54] because I had buffed up my cards to some absurd degree.

[01:15:57] And that is so satisfying.

[01:15:59] The fun of the game comes from just breaking the rules of the game,

[01:16:02] from experimenting.

[01:16:03] There's no wrong way to play it.

[01:16:05] You could do whatever you want.

[01:16:06] Of course, it is a roguelike.

[01:16:08] Sometimes you might not get what you want

[01:16:10] or what you're building towards.

[01:16:11] You don't get the cards you want

[01:16:13] or how you were trying to manipulate it

[01:16:15] didn't turn out in your favor, so you lose.

[01:16:17] That's just the nature of roguelikes in general

[01:16:19] and also kind of the nature of poker.

[01:16:21] You are drawing cards.

[01:16:22] So sometimes you don't get the cards you want,

[01:16:24] but you can still manipulate it to get the cards you want

[01:16:26] if you're really good at it.

[01:16:28] So Bellatro, I played so much of this game

[01:16:31] and it's a game where I played a lot of it when it came out

[01:16:33] and then I stopped.

[01:16:34] And then I thought,

[01:16:35] I kind of want to go back and play.

[01:16:37] And then I played a lot of it again

[01:16:39] and I stopped.

[01:16:40] And then again, I got the bug where

[01:16:41] I kind of want to play Bellatro.

[01:16:43] So I went back, played hours and hours of it.

[01:16:46] It's just a game you can go back to anytime

[01:16:48] and still have a ton of fun with it.

[01:16:50] And the developer is just one guy made this game

[01:16:54] and he says he's going to make new content

[01:16:56] for the game next year as well

[01:16:57] and it will be free.

[01:16:59] So I think a game similar to Stardew Valley

[01:17:02] where this game is just going to get updates for years

[01:17:04] and you can always go back to it and enjoy the game.

[01:17:08] So Bellatro, if you told me in January

[01:17:10] what your favorite game of the year is going to be

[01:17:12] a Western developed indie roguelike,

[01:17:15] there's no way that's going to happen.

[01:17:17] It's going to be Zelda

[01:17:18] or it's going to be some Nintendo franchise

[01:17:20] that I've loved all my life

[01:17:22] or maybe some new JRPG I discovered.

[01:17:24] But nope, it's this game.

[01:17:26] It's just that good.

[01:17:27] Bellatro, game of the year.

[01:17:29] Highly recommend it.

[01:17:30] It's on literally everything.

[01:17:32] So listeners, if you haven't picked it up yet,

[01:17:33] go pick it up.

[01:17:35] That is the first time I've heard the game described

[01:17:38] where it actually made me want to try it.

[01:17:41] Especially compared to other card-based games

[01:17:43] or deck building games.

[01:17:44] One of the reasons they just never appealed to me

[01:17:46] is that it takes so much agency out of your hands

[01:17:50] and you're just trying to hope for the luck of the cards.

[01:17:53] But with this, because the Jokers have so much sway over it

[01:17:56] that it just makes it feel

[01:17:58] that I would have a little bit more control over the outcome.

[01:18:01] I don't know.

[01:18:01] It seems really interesting.

[01:18:03] I'm very curious to give this a try at some point.

[01:18:06] And the Jokers are really powerful as well.

[01:18:08] There are roguelite elements

[01:18:10] where you are continuously unlocking more and more Jokers

[01:18:13] that will be added to your future runs.

[01:18:15] So even if you're not really good at it at first,

[01:18:18] you are getting more and more powerful Jokers.

[01:18:20] Some of the Jokers are just so absurdly powerful,

[01:18:22] but in a fun way.

[01:18:23] One of the Jokers is that you can make straights or flushes

[01:18:27] with four cards instead of five cards.

[01:18:30] Oh, wow.

[01:18:30] So think about if you're playing poker,

[01:18:32] a flush is all the same suit.

[01:18:35] And think about if you're playing poker with your friends,

[01:18:37] you're like, oh man, I've got four hearts.

[01:18:39] If I just had one more heart, I would totally win.

[01:18:42] But this game has a special ability or Joker

[01:18:45] where you only need four cards

[01:18:48] if you want to do a straight or a flush.

[01:18:50] That is so powerful.

[01:18:52] I got some Jokers that were,

[01:18:54] if you play two pairs, you get like double points.

[01:18:56] At first I thought, okay,

[01:18:57] this is the only way to beat the game.

[01:18:59] You can only beat the game by manipulating this two pair Joker combo.

[01:19:03] But then I started to experiment more.

[01:19:07] And then, oh, actually,

[01:19:08] best way to play is the flush.

[01:19:10] Only rely on flushes.

[01:19:12] But then I played another round where,

[01:19:13] oh, actually,

[01:19:14] the strongest hand was,

[01:19:15] if I level up the high card

[01:19:18] and just play high card,

[01:19:19] then that's the strongest way to beat the game.

[01:19:21] So it's really easy in roguelites

[01:19:24] where you can think,

[01:19:25] there's only one way to beat it.

[01:19:26] I'm just going to try to do this one way,

[01:19:28] this one build,

[01:19:29] and just try it again and again and again

[01:19:31] until I get this one build.

[01:19:32] But this game is really good with guiding you towards,

[01:19:35] oh no,

[01:19:35] you don't need to rely on this one way to play it.

[01:19:37] There are many ways to play it

[01:19:38] and experiment with it.

[01:19:39] And then you might be surprised

[01:19:40] about how well you do.

[01:19:42] Even if you don't beat it,

[01:19:43] you might get farther than you did before.

[01:19:45] And the game is excellent

[01:19:46] about showing you

[01:19:48] all the different options you have.

[01:19:49] Even if you lose,

[01:19:50] it's still fun

[01:19:51] because you understand more and more

[01:19:53] about the game as you play it.

[01:19:54] So Bellatro,

[01:19:55] yes,

[01:19:55] everyone should go play it.

[01:19:56] It's on Switch,

[01:19:57] it's on PC,

[01:19:58] it's on mobile.

[01:19:59] If you have any gaming console,

[01:20:00] it's there.

[01:20:00] So listeners,

[01:20:01] check it out.

[01:20:03] All right,

[01:20:03] so those were our games of the year.

[01:20:05] Let's go through 5 to 1 one more time

[01:20:07] just in case listeners forgot.

[01:20:09] So Josh,

[01:20:10] from 5 to 1,

[01:20:10] what are your favorite games of 2024?

[01:20:12] From 5 to 1,

[01:20:14] we have Horizon Zero Dawn,

[01:20:17] Chrono Trigger,

[01:20:18] Tunic,

[01:20:19] Donkey Kong Country,

[01:20:20] and at number one,

[01:20:21] Super Mario RPG,

[01:20:22] specifically the 2023 remake.

[01:20:25] All right,

[01:20:25] my top five for 2024.

[01:20:27] Number five,

[01:20:28] Pokemon TCG Pocket.

[01:20:29] Number four,

[01:20:30] Splatoon 3 Side Order.

[01:20:32] Number three,

[01:20:32] The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom.

[01:20:34] Number two,

[01:20:35] Astro Bot.

[01:20:36] And number one,

[01:20:37] Bellatro.

[01:20:38] All right,

[01:20:38] so that was our game of the year episode

[01:20:40] for 2024.

[01:20:43] Josh,

[01:20:43] it's always a delight to have you on the podcast.

[01:20:45] You always have a very interesting take

[01:20:47] on your favorite games of the year.

[01:20:49] So yes,

[01:20:50] I dare you,

[01:20:51] I dare any of the listeners

[01:20:52] try to find these same 10 games

[01:20:55] in a top games of 2024 list.

[01:20:57] I think you won't find this exact combo.

[01:21:00] So listeners,

[01:21:01] I hope you had fun digging into

[01:21:02] the best games released in 2024

[01:21:04] and the best games

[01:21:05] that you can still play

[01:21:06] and have fun with in 2024.

[01:21:09] So Josh,

[01:21:10] where can people find you?

[01:21:11] Oh,

[01:21:12] you can follow me

[01:21:13] on multiple social media places,

[01:21:15] Instagram,

[01:21:16] Blue Sky,

[01:21:17] Threads,

[01:21:18] Twitch,

[01:21:18] at Still Loading Pod.

[01:21:19] I do stream every now and then,

[01:21:21] usually Tuesday and Saturday nights

[01:21:23] around 8 p.m. Eastern,

[01:21:25] depending on recording schedules.

[01:21:26] I'm also at Still Loading Podcast

[01:21:28] on YouTube

[01:21:29] if you want to see the,

[01:21:30] you can listen to the show.

[01:21:31] There's no video,

[01:21:32] it's all just thumbnails

[01:21:33] and audio of the show,

[01:21:34] but it's there

[01:21:35] if that's more convenient for you.

[01:21:36] And of course,

[01:21:37] you can find

[01:21:37] the Still Loading Podcast

[01:21:38] where all podcasts

[01:21:40] are given away for free.

[01:21:41] Apple Podcasts,

[01:21:42] YouTube Music,

[01:21:43] Spotify,

[01:21:45] I'm at all those

[01:21:45] different locations.

[01:21:47] Recently had,

[01:21:48] I think actually since

[01:21:49] I had my 10th anniversary

[01:21:51] of the podcast,

[01:21:51] it's been going on for 10 years.

[01:21:53] So I did some big

[01:21:55] 10th anniversary episodes

[01:21:56] and got a lot of cool stuff

[01:21:58] coming down next year.

[01:21:59] Like I mentioned,

[01:22:00] Mario Month in March

[01:22:01] is going to be

[01:22:01] all RPG based.

[01:22:03] So if you love Mario

[01:22:04] and you love Mario RPGs,

[01:22:05] be on the lookout for that.

[01:22:07] Still Loading Podcast,

[01:22:08] that's where I'm at.

[01:22:10] Yes, listeners,

[01:22:10] check out the podcast.

[01:22:12] Josh is the hardest

[01:22:12] working man in podcasting.

[01:22:14] Every week,

[01:22:15] he's got a huge episode

[01:22:16] with really amazing guests.

[01:22:18] I highly,

[01:22:19] highly recommend it.

[01:22:20] I've been on a few

[01:22:21] of his episodes as well.

[01:22:22] Mario Kart DS

[01:22:23] from earlier this year.

[01:22:24] I was on Pokemon Red and Blue

[01:22:26] from last year.

[01:22:27] Hopefully,

[01:22:27] I'll be on some future episodes.

[01:22:28] So listeners,

[01:22:29] look forward to that.

[01:22:31] All right, Josh,

[01:22:32] thanks for coming back

[01:22:32] on the podcast.

[01:22:33] Thank you again

[01:22:34] for having me, Mono.

[01:22:35] It's always a pleasure

[01:22:36] and I'm looking forward

[01:22:37] to having you back

[01:22:38] on the show

[01:22:38] hopefully sometime soon.

[01:22:46] Today's feature

[01:22:47] is going to be a sequel

[01:22:48] to one I did last year

[01:22:49] about Japanese gaming pamphlets.

[01:22:50] I haven't repeated

[01:22:51] any feature segment yet,

[01:22:52] but I figured

[01:22:53] this should be the first

[01:22:54] because there are new

[01:22:55] pamphlets to flip through.

[01:22:56] And hey,

[01:22:57] from now on,

[01:22:58] every Game of the Year episode

[01:22:59] will just have

[01:23:00] this same feature,

[01:23:01] so look forward to it.

[01:23:02] But before you get excited

[01:23:03] for 2025 pamphlets,

[01:23:04] which will probably have

[01:23:06] Switch 2 games,

[01:23:07] let's look at this year's.

[01:23:08] If you didn't listen

[01:23:09] to last year's episode

[01:23:10] and have no idea

[01:23:11] what I'm talking about,

[01:23:12] game stores in Japan

[01:23:13] often have free pamphlets,

[01:23:15] leaflets, magazines,

[01:23:16] or whatever else

[01:23:16] you want to call them.

[01:23:17] And these are things

[01:23:18] that people can take home

[01:23:19] for free.

[01:23:20] They advertise current

[01:23:21] and upcoming games,

[01:23:22] often with a unique form factor

[01:23:23] or a cool layout.

[01:23:24] And Japan is really

[01:23:26] the master

[01:23:26] when it comes to magazine

[01:23:27] and graphic design,

[01:23:28] in my opinion.

[01:23:28] And this time of the year

[01:23:30] is extra fun

[01:23:30] when it comes to these pamphlets

[01:23:32] because big game stores

[01:23:33] also put out their

[01:23:33] holiday guides.

[01:23:35] Obviously,

[01:23:35] you've got to start

[01:23:36] with the big boys,

[01:23:37] Yodobashi Camera

[01:23:38] and Bit Camera

[01:23:38] toy and game catalogs.

[01:23:40] These are huge

[01:23:41] magazine-style booklets

[01:23:42] detailing stuff

[01:23:43] that you should buy for kids

[01:23:44] and, of course,

[01:23:45] kids at heart.

[01:23:46] Christmas is mostly

[01:23:47] a couples-focused holiday

[01:23:48] in Japan,

[01:23:48] but a lot of people

[01:23:49] still do the traditional

[01:23:50] gift-giving,

[01:23:51] especially with kids.

[01:23:52] And New Year's

[01:23:53] is right after that,

[01:23:54] and that's a bigger

[01:23:55] holiday in Japan,

[01:23:55] so I'm sure kids

[01:23:57] still get a gift or two

[01:23:58] to distract them

[01:23:58] during their days off.

[01:24:00] Parents need to rest.

[01:24:01] These catalogs

[01:24:02] really remind me

[01:24:02] of the toy catalogs

[01:24:03] from when I was a kid,

[01:24:04] especially the

[01:24:05] Toys R Us catalog.

[01:24:06] The layout is

[01:24:07] extremely similar

[01:24:08] with splash pages

[01:24:09] of new items,

[01:24:10] all the games

[01:24:10] kind of in their

[01:24:11] own little box

[01:24:12] on a page,

[01:24:12] and, of course,

[01:24:13] a lot of ads.

[01:24:15] The ads are also

[01:24:15] pretty fun because

[01:24:16] many of them are exclusive

[01:24:17] to these catalogs

[01:24:18] or brand new.

[01:24:19] Which is the better catalog?

[01:24:21] I gotta give it

[01:24:21] to Yodobashi Camera.

[01:24:23] It's bigger

[01:24:24] and has more

[01:24:24] specific categories.

[01:24:26] Like,

[01:24:26] on the side of the page,

[01:24:27] it shows you

[01:24:27] what section you're in.

[01:24:29] Big Cameras Catalog

[01:24:30] only has a generic

[01:24:31] gaming section,

[01:24:32] while Yodobashi

[01:24:33] breaks it into

[01:24:34] VR gaming,

[01:24:35] Nintendo Switch,

[01:24:36] game peripherals,

[01:24:36] etc.

[01:24:37] They get points

[01:24:38] for going the extra mile.

[01:24:39] And, of course,

[01:24:40] the Yodobashi Camera Catalog

[01:24:41] also has their

[01:24:42] iconic

[01:24:43] symbol-clanging

[01:24:44] monkey toy

[01:24:45] on the cover,

[01:24:46] something I tell myself

[01:24:47] every year I'm going

[01:24:47] to buy but never do.

[01:24:49] But I do want

[01:24:50] that monkey.

[01:24:51] The Switch section

[01:24:52] also has two huge pages

[01:24:53] on Jamboree

[01:24:54] and Mario and Luigi,

[01:24:55] which are their

[01:24:55] two holiday titles.

[01:24:56] And the Mario and Luigi page

[01:24:58] also has a subsection

[01:24:59] with other Mario-related games.

[01:25:01] There's also two pages

[01:25:02] highlighting the

[01:25:03] Yodobashi Camera

[01:25:03] exclusive deal,

[01:25:04] where you can get

[01:25:05] 550 yen off

[01:25:06] if you buy two Switch games.

[01:25:08] And you can even get

[01:25:09] special exclusive

[01:25:10] Mario packaging.

[01:25:11] Now,

[01:25:11] the other gaming sections,

[01:25:12] they're not as large,

[01:25:13] but PlayStation has

[01:25:14] a big holiday theme page

[01:25:15] for Astro Bot.

[01:25:16] Oddly enough,

[01:25:17] they aren't even advertising

[01:25:18] the PS5 Pro

[01:25:19] in the catalog

[01:25:19] or the Portal.

[01:25:20] I know the Portal

[01:25:21] has stock issues,

[01:25:22] but it's weird not

[01:25:23] to make a PS5 Pro push.

[01:25:25] And you might be thinking,

[01:25:26] what does Xbox

[01:25:27] have to advertise

[01:25:28] in a Japanese catalog?

[01:25:29] Just two pages

[01:25:30] highlighting Game Pass,

[01:25:31] which is what they've

[01:25:32] gone all in on

[01:25:33] in the Japanese market.

[01:25:34] I honestly don't even

[01:25:35] remember the last

[01:25:36] retail Xbox game

[01:25:37] I've seen.

[01:25:37] It seems like

[01:25:38] that should have sailed.

[01:25:39] Alright,

[01:25:40] so I've collected

[01:25:40] just a bunch of

[01:25:41] random pamphlets

[01:25:42] that are in GameStorms

[01:25:42] now for the holidays,

[01:25:43] and I'm just going

[01:25:44] to flip through them.

[01:25:45] Now,

[01:25:46] the coolest one

[01:25:46] is easily

[01:25:47] the Nintendo Magazine,

[01:25:48] which features Bowser

[01:25:49] on the cover this year.

[01:25:50] Nintendo has uploaded

[01:25:51] a digital English version,

[01:25:52] but you can get

[01:25:53] a physical Japanese version

[01:25:54] for free

[01:25:55] in any Japanese game store.

[01:25:57] Probably the highlight

[01:25:58] for me is

[01:25:59] the six-page feature

[01:26:00] on the Nintendo Museum.

[01:26:01] I will get there one day,

[01:26:03] but in the meantime,

[01:26:03] you can listen to

[01:26:04] the episode I did about it

[01:26:05] where I talked to

[01:26:06] Kyoto Gamer,

[01:26:07] who has now been

[01:26:07] at least twice.

[01:26:09] I'll do my best

[01:26:09] to catch up to that number.

[01:26:11] If we're judging by shape,

[01:26:12] perhaps the best one

[01:26:13] is for Donkey Kong Country Returns,

[01:26:15] which is just a leaflet

[01:26:16] shaped like a bunch of bananas.

[01:26:18] There's also a big

[01:26:18] 15-page Mario Jamboree booklet

[01:26:20] focusing on mini-games

[01:26:21] and new features.

[01:26:23] It shows four people playing,

[01:26:24] and at first,

[01:26:25] I thought these were celebrities,

[01:26:26] but my wife says

[01:26:26] she has no idea

[01:26:27] who they are.

[01:26:28] Nintendo must have used

[01:26:29] all their celebrity budget

[01:26:30] up on Hiroi Igata

[01:26:32] playing Mario and Luigi.

[01:26:33] There's a Pokemon-themed pamphlet

[01:26:35] with Shiny Rayquaza

[01:26:35] on the cover.

[01:26:36] I think all the games

[01:26:37] in the Pokeverse

[01:26:38] are getting some sort of

[01:26:39] Shiny Rayquaza event soon,

[01:26:40] so they've really

[01:26:41] been pushing that.

[01:26:42] Even in Tokyo,

[01:26:43] there was a Black Friday event

[01:26:45] at Lollaport

[01:26:45] where they put up

[01:26:46] decorations of black Pokemon

[01:26:48] with Rayquaza being

[01:26:49] the centerpiece

[01:26:49] because Shiny Rayquaza

[01:26:51] is black,

[01:26:52] so Black Friday,

[01:26:53] that's as good as a connection

[01:26:54] you're going to get.

[01:26:55] The pamphlet is actually

[01:26:56] a fold-out,

[01:26:57] and the back of it

[01:26:58] is a poster featuring

[01:26:59] all the DLC Pokemon,

[01:27:00] and this would have

[01:27:01] absolutely been on my wall

[01:27:02] when I was a kid.

[01:27:03] Next up are two

[01:27:04] introductory booklets

[01:27:05] for the Nintendo Switch.

[01:27:07] These are put out by Nintendo

[01:27:08] and mostly just highlight

[01:27:09] the Switch catalog

[01:27:09] with a focus on

[01:27:11] first-party games

[01:27:11] and evergreen titles.

[01:27:13] They always feature

[01:27:13] professional photography

[01:27:14] of a family

[01:27:15] or someone playing

[01:27:15] Nintendo Switch

[01:27:16] in an ideal setting.

[01:27:17] I always get a kick

[01:27:18] out of these

[01:27:19] because I've never been

[01:27:19] in a Japanese house

[01:27:20] with a living room

[01:27:21] this huge.

[01:27:22] Are they living in

[01:27:23] Daikanyama,

[01:27:24] or where is this?

[01:27:25] But these are handy

[01:27:26] booklets focused on

[01:27:27] people who are just

[01:27:27] picking up a Switch now

[01:27:28] and don't know the catalog

[01:27:30] like the back of their hand.

[01:27:31] The booklets are literally

[01:27:33] titled My First Game

[01:27:34] and My First Nintendo Switch.

[01:27:36] And similar to this,

[01:27:37] they also have a Splatoon booklet

[01:27:38] focusing on introducing

[01:27:39] the game to newcomers.

[01:27:40] This one is far more

[01:27:41] dynamic and colorful

[01:27:42] compared to the sterile

[01:27:43] booklets I just talked about.

[01:27:45] And this one is not new,

[01:27:46] but it's still out

[01:27:47] for the holidays

[01:27:47] and Splatoon is still

[01:27:48] very popular in Japan.

[01:27:49] So I imagine a lot of kids

[01:27:51] are getting Splatoon 3

[01:27:52] under their Christmas tree

[01:27:53] this year.

[01:27:54] Next up is a Mario booklet

[01:27:55] highlighting the mini Mario games

[01:27:56] with Jamboree right up front.

[01:27:58] Hey, this is going to be

[01:27:59] Nintendo's highest selling

[01:28:00] game this year,

[01:28:01] so I get why they were

[01:28:01] trying to push it so hard.

[01:28:03] And they are counting

[01:28:04] Donkey Kong as part

[01:28:05] of the Marioverse

[01:28:06] for the sake of this booklet

[01:28:07] as DKC Returns

[01:28:08] is featured here.

[01:28:09] It is kind of funny

[01:28:10] how separate the two IPs

[01:28:11] were for so long,

[01:28:12] but now with the new

[01:28:13] theme park and movie,

[01:28:14] I think they are trying

[01:28:15] to reconsolidate them.

[01:28:17] But Yoshi is nowhere

[01:28:18] to be seen in the Mario guide.

[01:28:20] Next is a pamphlet

[01:28:21] on Fitness Boxing 3

[01:28:22] from Imagineer,

[01:28:23] the developers of

[01:28:24] Quest 64.

[01:28:25] This series has been

[01:28:26] a big hit for them,

[01:28:27] and in America,

[01:28:28] Nintendo is actually

[01:28:29] publishing this game.

[01:28:30] But in Japan,

[01:28:31] I believe it is being

[01:28:31] published by Imagineer.

[01:28:33] Not only is this pamphlet

[01:28:34] just a bunch of pics

[01:28:35] highlighting the game,

[01:28:36] there are also pages

[01:28:37] dedicating to recording

[01:28:38] your progress.

[01:28:39] There's a place to write

[01:28:40] your goal and then

[01:28:40] a before and after section

[01:28:41] where you can write down

[01:28:42] your weight,

[01:28:43] BMI,

[01:28:44] and waist size.

[01:28:45] There's also a little

[01:28:46] factoid that says

[01:28:47] people who played

[01:28:48] Fitness Boxing 2

[01:28:48] for at least 30 days

[01:28:49] in a five-month span

[01:28:51] lost an average

[01:28:52] of 2.6 kilograms,

[01:28:54] which doesn't seem

[01:28:54] like a whole lot,

[01:28:55] but I guess that's more

[01:28:56] than if you were,

[01:28:57] you know,

[01:28:57] playing Zelda.

[01:28:58] It also has a three-week

[01:28:59] calendar where you can

[01:29:00] record the exercises you did.

[01:29:02] It's actually surprisingly handy.

[01:29:04] I can see people

[01:29:05] picking up the game

[01:29:05] after seeing this sort

[01:29:06] of Beginner's Fitness Plan.

[01:29:08] A game that's not going

[01:29:09] to make you lose weight,

[01:29:10] Bellatro.

[01:29:11] The physical version

[01:29:12] recently hit Japan

[01:29:13] and there are flyers

[01:29:14] shaped like the Joker

[01:29:15] playing cards

[01:29:15] advertising the game.

[01:29:17] The front is identical

[01:29:18] to a Joker card

[01:29:19] and the back has info

[01:29:20] about the game

[01:29:20] and the physical edition.

[01:29:22] I've only seen the normal

[01:29:23] and throwback Joker designs,

[01:29:24] but hopefully there's

[01:29:25] an abstract Joker

[01:29:26] out there somewhere.

[01:29:27] And leaving the Switch

[01:29:28] for a bit,

[01:29:29] there's an Astro Bot pamphlet

[01:29:30] put out by Famitsu.

[01:29:31] Nothing really crazy here,

[01:29:32] just your typical pics

[01:29:33] and info dump about the game.

[01:29:34] I do like seeing Sony

[01:29:35] push Astro Bot pretty hard

[01:29:36] over here in Japan.

[01:29:37] It's going to be hard

[01:29:38] to appeal to kids

[01:29:39] considering Nintendo's domination,

[01:29:41] but it is a great game

[01:29:42] that can hopefully

[01:29:42] find an audience in Japan.

[01:29:44] Rise of the Ronin

[01:29:45] also had a similar booklet

[01:29:46] put out by Famitsu

[01:29:46] and something tells me

[01:29:47] they didn't just make this

[01:29:49] for the holiday

[01:29:49] and this has been sitting

[01:29:50] in Yodabashi Camera

[01:29:51] for a while now.

[01:29:52] I promise to play

[01:29:53] this game one day though.

[01:29:54] I feel like I will enjoy it

[01:29:55] even though reviews were mixed.

[01:29:57] What else is here?

[01:29:58] I've got a Fairytale 2 pamphlet.

[01:30:00] I know nothing

[01:30:01] about this series

[01:30:02] or the game,

[01:30:03] but it has a nice

[01:30:03] fold-out picture.

[01:30:04] There's also a leaflet

[01:30:06] for a game called

[01:30:06] Bang Bang Bandits,

[01:30:07] which looks like

[01:30:08] a cartoony co-op

[01:30:09] first-person shooter

[01:30:10] where you point the Joy-Con

[01:30:11] that shoots stuff

[01:30:11] at the screen.

[01:30:12] So think of it more

[01:30:13] like a shooting gallery

[01:30:14] than Call of Duty.

[01:30:15] I don't know,

[01:30:16] it seems alright.

[01:30:16] I think it would be fun

[01:30:17] to play with people.

[01:30:18] And from the same developer,

[01:30:19] Nippon Columbia,

[01:30:20] is another pamphlet

[01:30:21] of a game called

[01:30:22] Hone Hone Zara's Cross.

[01:30:24] I think this is based off

[01:30:26] of real plastic toys

[01:30:27] that's kind of like Lego,

[01:30:28] but with dinosaur bones.

[01:30:30] So you build a dinosaur

[01:30:31] and then you fight.

[01:30:32] So I guess kind of like

[01:30:33] custom Robo,

[01:30:34] but I'm going to skip

[01:30:35] this one, sorry.

[01:30:36] There's an Atelier Yumiya pamphlet

[01:30:37] that's a fold-out

[01:30:38] with all the characters.

[01:30:39] Visually,

[01:30:39] the game is pretty incredible

[01:30:40] on the Switch,

[01:30:41] so I am slightly scared

[01:30:43] about the performance.

[01:30:44] I enjoyed Raiza,

[01:30:45] but I think I might jump

[01:30:46] into this one

[01:30:47] before Raiza 2.

[01:30:49] Also in the same style

[01:30:50] as Yumiya

[01:30:50] is one about

[01:30:51] Dynasty Warriors origins,

[01:30:52] so Koei Tekpo

[01:30:53] is trying to get

[01:30:54] these pamphlets out ASAP.

[01:30:55] There's also a pamphlet

[01:30:56] for Shinjuku Somei,

[01:30:57] which surprisingly

[01:30:58] got a Western release.

[01:31:00] It's a visual novel

[01:31:00] set in Shinjuku,

[01:31:01] which sounds pretty fun.

[01:31:03] I do like it

[01:31:03] when games are set in Tokyo.

[01:31:05] I also have another pamphlet

[01:31:06] for a game

[01:31:06] I've never heard of

[01:31:07] called Debut Project

[01:31:08] Cooking Cafe,

[01:31:09] which looks like

[01:31:10] a Diner Dash clone,

[01:31:11] but you can also make the food

[01:31:12] by placing the ingredients

[01:31:13] on a plate.

[01:31:14] I'm not the target audience

[01:31:15] for this,

[01:31:15] but maybe it's good.

[01:31:17] And I gotta say

[01:31:18] the best pamphlet for last,

[01:31:19] Anpan Man,

[01:31:20] Touch Day,

[01:31:20] Enjoy,

[01:31:21] Aiyueo,

[01:31:22] Kyoshitsu.

[01:31:23] I don't know

[01:31:23] how to translate this,

[01:31:24] but the game is designed

[01:31:25] to teach kids hiragana

[01:31:26] that mostly focuses

[01:31:27] on the touchscreen.

[01:31:29] So you practice

[01:31:30] writing hiragana

[01:31:30] on a touchscreen

[01:31:31] and then play a bunch

[01:31:32] of mini-games

[01:31:32] to help you remember them.

[01:31:34] In Japan,

[01:31:34] I believe they start

[01:31:35] teaching you hiragana

[01:31:36] in first grade,

[01:31:37] so this game is aimed

[01:31:39] at five or six-year-olds.

[01:31:40] I don't know,

[01:31:41] I think kids could probably

[01:31:42] learn hiragana

[01:31:43] without this game.

[01:31:44] I trust the teachers.

[01:31:45] Also,

[01:31:46] the game is 7,480 yen.

[01:31:48] You could probably buy

[01:31:49] 10 hiragana practice books

[01:31:51] with Anpan Man

[01:31:52] on them

[01:31:52] for the same price.

[01:31:54] Actually,

[01:31:54] now I realize

[01:31:55] I probably saved

[01:31:55] the worst game for last,

[01:31:56] so sorry everyone.

[01:31:58] But if you're in Japan

[01:31:59] and want a free souvenir,

[01:32:00] try to nab these.

[01:32:02] And that's it

[01:32:02] for the future,

[01:32:03] so let's move on

[01:32:03] to the news.

[01:32:11] The Game Awards

[01:32:11] wrapped up a few days ago.

[01:32:13] Congrats to Astro Bot

[01:32:13] for winning Game of the Year.

[01:32:15] Sadly,

[01:32:15] they had to settle

[01:32:16] for second place

[01:32:16] with me,

[01:32:17] but at least

[01:32:17] they now have

[01:32:18] a consolation prize

[01:32:19] with the TGA Award.

[01:32:21] In terms of announcements,

[01:32:22] aka why everyone

[01:32:23] watches these things,

[01:32:24] it was a pretty strong showing,

[01:32:25] especially for

[01:32:26] Japanese developers.

[01:32:27] The biggest surprise

[01:32:28] had to be

[01:32:29] the sequel to Okami,

[01:32:30] which is being directed

[01:32:31] by Hideki Kamiya

[01:32:32] and his new studio,

[01:32:33] Clovers.

[01:32:34] Just a CGI trailer,

[01:32:35] but Okami 2 headed by Kamiya

[01:32:37] is pretty much

[01:32:37] what everyone wanted.

[01:32:38] It is interesting

[01:32:39] to see him work

[01:32:40] with Capcom again

[01:32:41] in some capacity,

[01:32:42] and that Capcom

[01:32:42] is even interested

[01:32:43] in reviving the project.

[01:32:45] They seem really focused

[01:32:46] on the big three,

[01:32:47] Monster Hunter,

[01:32:48] Resident Evil,

[01:32:48] and Street Fighter,

[01:32:49] but with Kunisugami

[01:32:50] and now Okami,

[01:32:51] they are trying to

[01:32:51] expand their portfolios

[01:32:52] a bit outside of

[01:32:53] just re-releasing old games.

[01:32:54] And Okami isn't alone

[01:32:55] as we are getting

[01:32:56] a brand new Onimusha game

[01:32:58] called Day of the Sword.

[01:32:59] I've actually only played

[01:33:00] the first Onimusha title,

[01:33:02] which is kind of

[01:33:02] a strange mix

[01:33:03] of Resident Evil

[01:33:03] and a character action game,

[01:33:05] but the later ones

[01:33:06] are more action-focused,

[01:33:07] I think.

[01:33:08] I'm very curious to see

[01:33:09] what idea they have

[01:33:10] for Onimusha.

[01:33:11] Is it something

[01:33:11] completely new?

[01:33:12] Is it a Sekiro clone?

[01:33:14] Maybe,

[01:33:14] but I think Capcom

[01:33:15] at least has a unique take

[01:33:16] if they're going to

[01:33:16] bring it back

[01:33:17] after all these years.

[01:33:18] More Japanese games,

[01:33:19] Ryugaga Toku Studios

[01:33:20] is staying busy

[01:33:21] as they are making

[01:33:22] a new Virtua Fighter game

[01:33:23] and Project Century

[01:33:25] an action game

[01:33:26] that takes place

[01:33:26] in the Taisho era

[01:33:27] of Japanese history.

[01:33:29] This is the 10-year or so

[01:33:30] span between the Meiji era

[01:33:31] and the Showa era,

[01:33:32] and in Japan,

[01:33:33] it definitely is viewed

[01:33:34] with a lot of interest

[01:33:34] and nostalgia.

[01:33:36] I mean,

[01:33:36] visually at least,

[01:33:37] it's a great setting

[01:33:38] for a game

[01:33:38] since it has

[01:33:39] such a striking aesthetic.

[01:33:40] Think flags.

[01:33:41] Flags everywhere.

[01:33:43] I've got an honest

[01:33:44] question though.

[01:33:44] Is the combat

[01:33:45] in any Yakuza game

[01:33:46] good?

[01:33:47] I mean,

[01:33:47] there are fun things

[01:33:48] you can do,

[01:33:48] like hit someone

[01:33:49] with a kettle

[01:33:50] and then pour hot tea

[01:33:50] on them,

[01:33:51] but I never thought

[01:33:52] these games had

[01:33:52] compelling combat.

[01:33:54] They really are

[01:33:54] the sums of their parts.

[01:33:56] Maybe they want to

[01:33:57] make a more complex

[01:33:58] character action game

[01:33:58] here with Project Century.

[01:34:00] I'm curious to know

[01:34:01] why isn't this just

[01:34:02] Yakuza origins

[01:34:03] or whatever?

[01:34:04] So maybe this is

[01:34:05] actually quite different

[01:34:05] from the previous titles.

[01:34:07] Another big Japanese game

[01:34:08] was Elder Ring Night Rain,

[01:34:09] a standalone title

[01:34:10] focused on co-op gameplay.

[01:34:12] PC Gamer had a hands-on

[01:34:13] article about the game

[01:34:14] and it's not what

[01:34:14] I expected at all.

[01:34:16] It mixes in

[01:34:16] battle royale elements

[01:34:17] with roguelites

[01:34:18] where you need to

[01:34:19] constantly move

[01:34:19] in an area

[01:34:20] and there are

[01:34:21] randomly generated

[01:34:21] elements and then

[01:34:22] you fight a boss

[01:34:22] at the end of your run.

[01:34:24] Plus,

[01:34:24] you pick your character

[01:34:25] so it's not like

[01:34:25] you're equipping items

[01:34:26] or leveling up.

[01:34:27] I loved Elder Ring

[01:34:28] but had no interest

[01:34:29] in the DLC,

[01:34:30] but something weird

[01:34:31] like this,

[01:34:31] I'm on board,

[01:34:32] especially if they

[01:34:33] just let you pick

[01:34:33] different weird

[01:34:34] character builds.

[01:34:35] And is it

[01:34:36] secretly a Switch 2 game?

[01:34:38] Maybe.

[01:34:39] And last Japanese game

[01:34:40] I want to talk about,

[01:34:40] Fumito Ueda

[01:34:41] revealed his new game

[01:34:42] that is maybe

[01:34:43] or maybe not

[01:34:44] called Project Robot.

[01:34:45] It's hard to explain

[01:34:46] but it does look like

[01:34:47] an Ueda game

[01:34:48] but with a gigantic robot.

[01:34:50] Again,

[01:34:51] not a whole lot

[01:34:51] to go on

[01:34:52] but it is exciting

[01:34:52] that Ueda

[01:34:53] is making a new game

[01:34:54] and it's not tied

[01:34:54] to Sony at all.

[01:34:55] Epic Games seems

[01:34:56] to be publishing it

[01:34:57] so it might come to PC

[01:34:58] and maybe even Switch 2

[01:34:59] so it might have

[01:35:00] a wider appeal

[01:35:01] than say The Last Guardian.

[01:35:02] And for non-Japanese games,

[01:35:04] the big highlight for me

[01:35:05] is The Witcher 4.

[01:35:06] I've played all

[01:35:07] the Witcher games

[01:35:07] and 3 is in my top 5 games

[01:35:09] of all time.

[01:35:10] Yes,

[01:35:10] I like it that much.

[01:35:12] It's definitely the best

[01:35:13] western developed game

[01:35:14] in my opinion.

[01:35:15] So as sequel to that,

[01:35:16] yeah,

[01:35:17] I want to play it.

[01:35:18] Technically,

[01:35:19] Witcher 4 is probably

[01:35:19] the game I want to play

[01:35:20] most from the Game Awards

[01:35:22] but the showing here

[01:35:23] wasn't really that exciting

[01:35:24] to be honest.

[01:35:25] First of all,

[01:35:26] CD Projekt Red

[01:35:26] has already said

[01:35:27] they were making

[01:35:27] a new Witcher game

[01:35:28] and it was a CGI trailer

[01:35:30] and it has no date

[01:35:31] and they went with

[01:35:32] the pretty predictable route

[01:35:33] of playing a Ciri.

[01:35:35] My dream Witcher 4

[01:35:36] would be a prequel game

[01:35:37] that takes place

[01:35:37] at the peak of the Witchers

[01:35:38] where they were more abundant

[01:35:40] and there were many more

[01:35:41] Witcher schools

[01:35:41] that were still active.

[01:35:42] You make a character,

[01:35:44] you pick a school,

[01:35:44] a lot of customization.

[01:35:46] I think you will have

[01:35:47] a lot more freedom

[01:35:48] with that idea.

[01:35:49] Playing a Ciri,

[01:35:51] yeah,

[01:35:51] I mean,

[01:35:51] Ciri is cool and all

[01:35:52] but Geralt's story

[01:35:53] came to an end

[01:35:54] and the political plots

[01:35:55] also had a pretty

[01:35:56] concrete conclusion

[01:35:57] so I don't know

[01:35:58] what they could do

[01:35:58] to really spice things up

[01:35:59] but hey,

[01:36:00] they haven't struck out yet

[01:36:01] with the Witcher franchise

[01:36:02] so I trust them.

[01:36:04] Going back to Nintendo

[01:36:05] for a little bit,

[01:36:05] there's a lot of

[01:36:06] new Nintendo merch.

[01:36:07] Maybe the ones

[01:36:07] that's been getting

[01:36:08] the most attention

[01:36:08] are the new

[01:36:09] Zonai device gacha figures

[01:36:10] you can find

[01:36:11] at Nintendo stores

[01:36:12] in Japan.

[01:36:13] This was literally

[01:36:14] shadow dropped.

[01:36:15] Nintendo didn't

[01:36:15] announce this beforehand,

[01:36:16] they just appeared

[01:36:17] at Nintendo Tokyo

[01:36:18] one day.

[01:36:19] They're little figurines

[01:36:20] of Zonai devices

[01:36:21] from Tears of the Kingdom

[01:36:22] so the pot,

[01:36:23] the laser unicorn,

[01:36:24] the wheel,

[01:36:24] the fan.

[01:36:25] It doesn't have everything

[01:36:26] but it has a lot

[01:36:27] of the good ones.

[01:36:29] Did I swing by

[01:36:29] Nintendo Tokyo

[01:36:30] to grab some?

[01:36:30] Of course.

[01:36:31] I got the beam unicorn

[01:36:32] and the pot.

[01:36:34] What's awesome

[01:36:34] about these figures

[01:36:35] is that the capsule

[01:36:36] is also just like

[01:36:37] the Zonai device capsule

[01:36:38] from the game

[01:36:39] so it's incredibly authentic.

[01:36:41] Sadly,

[01:36:42] the machine is not

[01:36:42] like the one in the game.

[01:36:44] And these machines

[01:36:44] have replaced

[01:36:45] the controller gachas

[01:36:46] at Nintendo Tokyo

[01:36:47] so there is a shelf life

[01:36:48] for these things.

[01:36:48] If you want them,

[01:36:49] you better get them

[01:36:50] within the first few months

[01:36:51] or else they're going

[01:36:52] to go bye-bye.

[01:36:53] Other Nintendo merch,

[01:36:54] the latest bunch

[01:36:54] of Pokemon Center goods

[01:36:55] centers around cheering

[01:36:56] like cheerleading,

[01:36:57] sort of.

[01:36:58] The big item

[01:36:59] is cheering Pikachu

[01:37:00] dressed up in traditional

[01:37:01] Japanese clothing

[01:37:01] holding fans

[01:37:02] and wearing a headband.

[01:37:03] But the headband?

[01:37:04] Of course,

[01:37:05] he's wearing a focus band

[01:37:06] with the flame design

[01:37:07] and you can buy

[01:37:08] your own focus band.

[01:37:09] Will it prevent you

[01:37:10] from fainting?

[01:37:11] Only one way to find out.

[01:37:13] But perhaps the coolest item

[01:37:14] are these keychains

[01:37:15] based on the vitamins

[01:37:16] from the games.

[01:37:17] These are little capsules

[01:37:18] that look exactly like

[01:37:19] the vitamin bottles

[01:37:19] from the game

[01:37:20] and all the vitamins

[01:37:21] are here.

[01:37:22] Carbos,

[01:37:22] iron,

[01:37:23] zinc,

[01:37:23] even PBUp

[01:37:24] and PBMax.

[01:37:26] I love these kind of

[01:37:27] if-you-know-you-know

[01:37:27] pieces of gaming merch

[01:37:28] and I can imagine

[01:37:29] these are going to sell out

[01:37:30] very quickly

[01:37:30] compared to the other goods

[01:37:31] so get them while you can.

[01:37:33] All right,

[01:37:33] let's wrap it up.

[01:37:34] Thanks as always for listening.

[01:37:35] Be sure to like

[01:37:36] and subscribe to this podcast

[01:37:37] on your favorite app.

[01:37:38] Leave a five-star review

[01:37:39] as well,

[01:37:39] it really helps.

[01:37:40] This podcast is also

[01:37:41] available on YouTube

[01:37:42] so like and subscribe

[01:37:43] there as well.

[01:37:44] I'm on Twitter,

[01:37:45] Threads,

[01:37:45] Blue Sky,

[01:37:45] Instagram,

[01:37:46] just search for

[01:37:46] Tokyo Game Life

[01:37:47] or find the links

[01:37:48] in the podcast description.

[01:37:49] If you like the podcast

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[01:37:51] and on social media.

[01:37:53] The next episode

[01:37:54] will be on December 29th.

[01:37:55] See you next time.

[01:37:56] Montene!