[S2 E10] Episode 030 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Two podcast hosts, Alec and James, discuss what games they have been playing recently. James has been playing Helldivers and has logged 83 hours, while Alec has been modding Final Fantasy IX and playing Cyberpunk on his new gaming PC. They also talk about other games they have played, such as Baldur's Gate 3 and Aragami. They mention adding games to their backlogs, including Shatter, Subnautica, and Cyberpunk. Alec also mentions getting Batman Arkham collection and Evil Genius 2. 3...2...1...Dark Lord Welcome back to 3-2-1 Backlog, the podcast where two recently separated conjoined twins are on a mission to count down their video game backlogs. My name is Alec and I'm joined by James today. James, how are you doing? This is the best day of my life. Is it? It is, yeah. I'm glad you asked. I don't want to go into it at all, but it it's definitely up there. I don't want to talk about it. Can we move on? We can, okay, let's move on. So, you know, we haven't recorded for a minute and I figured we could maybe jump into a little, like, bit or just section, segment, if you will, and kind of talk about what we've been playing in our recording absence, what games we've added to our backlogs, maybe a little Backlog Builders segment. Dealers' Choice, do you want to talk about our backlog being built first or what you've been playing recently? Talk about what we've been playing recently because I think I know, I think we both know. I mean, it's the most democratic choice. I've got 83 hours in the last, like, since Helldivers 2 came out. That's the answer. Whoa! I'm at, like, low 30s, I think. That's pretty significant, though. That's a good bit. It is, it is. Yeah. I'd say 33 hours to your... 83, I said. Yeah. 83. Jason has, what, like, 600 hours? 180-something, yeah. He's always, he's for the democracy. So, so good. Yeah, that's, that's been our, our, our bro gaming nights have definitely shifted hard to Helldivers. Yeah. I mean, we, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's been, which is a good switch. We were doing a lot of, um, Here's the Storm. We were doing some other, like, like, Raft we did for a bit. We did, um, what were some of the other ones we did? We did Fortnite. We did Fortnite for a little bit. We did a little Diablo 4 back in the, back when it came out. Pal World was happening. Yeah. Did you mention that? I didn't. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. But no, I think, I think Helldivers has been a good, a good push for the, for the bros, the boys. For Super Earth. Yeah. Uh, so not, not a ton. Um, I've been playing, I, I recently modded this Everliving shit out of, uh, Final Fantasy IX, the Steam version. So there's a lot of, like, PC mods. There's one where they used, like, an AI to generate and make it widescreen because it's an old PlayStation game. So they made, like, just expanded the background using AI, which is pretty nuts. Okay. So now it's full, uh, widescreen, full, fully. And, and then they also reshaded everything, I think using the same technology. So the game looks a lot better. Like it's, it's almost like actual PS2 quality. Um, and then I've, I added like a difficulty mod to it as well. So the game is very difficult now. Um, I've died a lot in it and I'm not good at it anymore. Um, yeah. What about you? What other, what other stuff have you been playing? Oh, and I've played a little Cyberpunk, just testing it out because I got a new gaming PC. Oh, right on. Uh, we've had, we've had a lengthy time away from recording. So I have a handful that I've been playing. Um, I jumped back into Baldur's Gate 3. I have yet to finish the game. I'm, if I hopped on within the next 20 minutes, I would be into Act 3 and seeing the end game. So I am very close to getting that wrapped up after 250 hours, uh, between multiple play sessions I've played when the early access came out a couple of years ago. Um, put a lot of time into that game and I just dropped off real hard from that game and I want to get back into it because it is an amazing, um, experience. I kind of want to play it more too, because I feel like it was like, you know, maybe the nights where everybody else is doing something and it's just us, maybe we could try that instead of Helldivers. Cause it was fun playing it with you. We had our, our character combination that definitely were brothers, but maybe not the same person. Yeah. Corduroy Troy and what was your guy's name? Corduroy Troy and, oh, what was my name? Shifty. I don't know. Shifty, yeah. Shifty the Halfling. Yeah. Corduroy Troy then. Corduroy Troy. And my longest, and my longest play through for, for canon of our little band of brothers is, uh, Wifey, Shifty's, uh, mistress has been on the lookout for him. So I've actually been playing as, as Wifey trying to, to go find Shifty and going through the story. So it's been, uh, it's been real, real fun. Uh, let's see. Other than that, uh, I jumped into a game called, um, let me see if I can pronounce this right. Aragami. A-R-A-G-A-M-I. It's like, um, a ninja stealth game. I was getting a real like urge to play something stealthy. I played it for a couple of weeks. After Metal Gear Solid. Yeah. Uh, it was really fun. Um, short game, basic mechanics and stuff. You can like, uh, go through shadows and things. That's real, real fun. I played. Oh, that's a cool looking, uh, like cel-shaded style pen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I've never, uh, never even seen that. I think I'll add that soon to my. Yeah. Is it a controller game? Um, I believe I played it. What did I play this on? I think I played it on the PC. I cannot remember if I did a controller or not. Cause it was actually, it was, it was, Oh wow. It was actually close to the, uh, it was actually Christmas when I played it. I thought I played it sooner than that, but it's been, it's been a minute. Um, it reminds me of a game I played on PS1 called Bushido Blade back in, I don't know. I mean, why wouldn't it? It's like a Japanese fighting game, but it's kind of, yeah, that's good, man. I'm going to, I'm adding it right now to my steam deck. Maybe I'll give it a try. Probably. Uh, I got two more games cause our little break was actually quite lengthy. Uh, I jumped in for a couple hours of Bramble the Mountain King, which we had talked about possibly covering, uh, during our Halloween section or I think right after. Um, that would have been a great game for Halloween. My goodness. I think I was kind of holding out for that. I haven't finished it. So if we ever want to circle back, it's definitely an option. And then the game that I have really been enjoying a lot more than I thought I would is Dave the Diver. That's hard. Yeah. And I believe we may be talking about that soon. I've put, do you want to know how many hours I put into this thing? Close to 40. I've put in 38 hours to Dave the Diver. And, uh, I'm, I think I'm getting kind of close to the end game, uh, or, or the, the, the, the end of the story, uh, rather, but, um, it's fun. It's surprisingly enjoyable for, for what it is. So I, I really do hope we, uh, we talk about it. It's a, it's a fun game. Okay. And then because we are, yeah, we're, you know, we're a show that we are talking about games that we have bought, put on our backlog in whatever capacity, and we're trying to count down through those. I figured, uh, like every gamer, we're going to be, uh, I think in your case, more so than me, putting more games on that list faster than you take them off that list. Yeah. So we could do a little segment, uh, of backlog builders. What, um, what have you, what have you put on your backlog recently? So I got it pulled up here. Um, so since our last recording, I got a game called Shatter, which is like a block builder game, uh, or block breaker, brick breaker game, kind of like block ball, like almost like an alteration of ping pong. I don't know. I used to love those games when I was a kid. Um, I also got Subnautica, which is a kind of a bigger one. I, I got that around, um, like in February. I don't know a ton about it, but it's like all underwater. I think it's like a base building game. Uh, Helldivers, obviously we got that. Um, I got another one that's called, uh, Kays and the Wild Masks, which is a platformer that I believe plays very similarly to Donkey Kong Country 2. Like, I think it's almost one-to-one. I got Cyberpunk. I've put a little bit of time into that. It's a pretty cool game, but, um, I want to, I was wondering if maybe one day you would want to like really scratch that surface. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm interested in it for sure, but I know it's a beefy game. Yeah. I don't know how much, I'm not gonna like, you know, quit my job to play it, but, um, it's there. And then I got, uh, Darkest Dungeon, which I don't know a ton about it, but it was really cheap and I've heard a lot of really good things about it. So I figured, why not? Just why not? What about you? You get some new games, bro? Yeah. Um, I think games that we had access to, but I went ahead and made the purchase in preparation for us possibly getting into it. Star Wars, Generous Survivors. I got that line. I grabbed the Batman Arkham collection that were on the mega sale. Okay. I had those. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they were so cheap. It was like, you know, like five bucks and I could just have it. I think I bought them back then for five bucks. Yeah. So, uh, I got a game called, uh, Wild Hearts, which looks like an RPG or something. RPG kind of thing. It looked interesting that the trailer hooked me in. Uh, so we might be giving that a go at some point. And then I got, again, all these are mega on sale. Cause I don't like buying a bunch of games all at once. And these are spread over multiple weeks. A game called, uh, Perception, which I think you and I talked about briefly where you're playing as a blind woman and you kind of navigate through like, kind of like echolocation, like a hurricane or something hitting it. And then the map lights up in a certain way. But if you don't do anything for a while, I think it goes, starts to go black. So it's a little bit of stuff like that. Kind of some horror elements. I remember you telling me about this now. I felt like I was very disinterested. Yeah. And then I got, um, another base builder game, uh, Worker Man has been called Evil Genius 2, which I actually grabbed for $2 and started playing it almost immediately. So, um, it's, uh, you know, those types of games never end. You could, you could literally play them forever. So, um, but yeah, there's a, there, there's a slew of other games that I got for like a couple bucks here, a dollar there. Um, the list just way too big for me to go over now. But, uh, yeah, it's, um, it's, it's been, it's been a lot. There's so many games out there. Yeah. I noticed there's been a lot more indie games coming out lately too. They're like just flooding in because developers aren't putting out a lot of like Dave the Diver. It might be an indie game. It might not be, but there's not a lot of new games coming out lately. I don't know. There's always something stopping companies from making games or delaying games. And so there's really been a lot of, yeah, sure. It's always money. Yeah. I didn't want to say it, but yeah, I've, I've noticed that there's, there seems like there's a lot of stuff on the table, uh, or you get shitty contractual obligations and then, uh, you get games like, um, um, uh, skull and bones. So the two sides, two sides of each that, yeah, I, it's, that's going to be one of Ubisoft's biggest flops and I'm never going to touch it unless it becomes free. So, which it won't. No, nothing is free. No. Yeah. I, I, every time I see like an Assassin's Creed game go on sale, I feel like I'm having a fever dream. I'm like, this is impossible. What's happening? Yeah. Realize it's a Ubisoft game from 2008 that is on sale for $30. Right. Oh man. Okay. Yeah. Let's, let's get into what we're talking about this week. The game that we've been playing for the actual episode. Yeah, man. What game was that? Do you recall? I do recall it was your pick though. So do you want to, do you want to take us into it? No, dude, you do it so much better. Uh, yeah, I'll do it. Uh, this week we played Ori and the Will of the Wisps, um, published by Xbox game studio developed by moon studios. I don't know what the difference is in any of that came out on basically every platform. It's a platformer game, like, you know, side-scrolling platformer, kind of Metroidvania esque, just like the last one. If you, if you recall, uh, got a nine out of 10 on IGN and a Metacritic score of 90. I also happen to see a 10 out of 10 on steam, which is, seems pretty easy to get. I don't know. These people are not very critical of games. Sometimes they're a little cute. You know, I, I feel like when people do ratings, it, it's rare to me, it seems like it's pretty rare to see like a middle of the road rating, right? It's either like, if they really, really liked it, they're going to go through the steps to say, you know what? Yeah, here, everyone, I really liked it. Let me get my writing out. Or they were so, so upset that like, Oh, I got to leave, got to leave my mark and drag this thing down. Cause it frustrated me. So it's rare. It's like, you know, it's like, nah, it was all right. They're not going to go through the process of like doing a, uh, typically they're not going to go through the process of doing a review. So I don't know, but I do think that having the law, uh, the, the pretty high score is pretty accurate. I thought it was really fun. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Um, I enjoyed it, but we're going to get into it a little bit. So we, we played the first game. I played it a little more than you did, right? Yes. And if memory serves it, it was a lot of, uh, I had a rough time that week trying to get those games out. Cause I believe it's the one we paired with Bioshock. And we tried to, we made, it was back when our format was, we're going to like both bring a game to the table and say, all right, we're going to play both of these over the next couple episodes and then, and then, and then record. So, uh, it was challenging and I had a lot of stuff going on with the house, but, um, but that said that from what I had played, it was actually really fun. I just didn't have the mental wherewithal to actually put into it. I liked the first game a lot. I know you, you just said things about it, but yeah, I really enjoyed the first game. Um, so I played this on the Steam Deck docked mode. Um, it's just, that's the most convenient. It's a console on my TV. I don't know. That's the way I tend to play. I already own the game on Steam. So that was the easiest. How did, how did you, how did you dip your toes into? I, uh, I, I bounced around between Steam and, uh, Game Pass. So this was on Game Pass. I downloaded and then, uh, played a little bit months and months ago. And then my son played a lot of it and got super, super far into it. And then I then wanted to start playing, but it gets really hectic out in the living room where the Xbox is. So I was like, all right, let me get it on Steam. But then all my progress was gone and I had to go and do a lot of it over again. So like the first, you know, couple of hours of the game, I've played a couple of times. Um, but I ended up finishing it, not finishing. I did not finish this game. It gets very, very hard towards the end. So I think I put a lot of it, a lot more than I did on, uh, the Blind Forest. You played 46 minutes instead of 45. Exactly. Exactly. So, but no, I ended up playing it on Steam on the PC with a controller. Um, I don't think I put it on the deck to be honest with you. I can't remember if I did or not, but in either case. That's why I just want to, that's what I like about having a console that I can play on PC. The cloud saving is so good, man. Like just to be able to do that. I know Game Pass has that. I guess you could, you probably could have accessed a Game Pass save on your computer. Now that I think about it. Oh, you know what? I probably could have. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. I think that is pretty, pretty substantial now, man. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And apparently now there's, um, I don't have a PS5, but you do, have you looked at the, uh, the portal? Cause apparently there's like a, a, their handheld version, but it's, but it's specific to PlayStation. So is it worth it? I don't know, but it's something that you can link your saves or it does something with the, with the PS5. So you can stream your PS4 or PS5 to your PC or your Steam Deck. So I, I've, I like the idea of the portal, but it's a lot of money for something that essentially I already have an expanded version of it. Right. And I think a lot of, a lot of people maybe don't realize that you can also, like if you've got the, um, backbone or one of those versions of it, you could use your phone and do the same thing. Like I can stream my PS5 to my phone. You know, it's, we live in a, we live in an era. Right on. So that's how we played. Let's get into our regular stuff here. Graphics, sound, all that good stuff. Um, graphics and art. I think it was pretty similar to the first one, which I think we gave really good scores for. It was maybe a little bit of an, uh, uh, enhancements or just because there was a couple of years in between releases. So it made tiny improvements, but I think all in all, it was pretty comparable to, uh, the first game in the series. And I think it was great. I do. I do too. We, I played it on a OLED TV, which really makes the colors pop hard on it. I think we also had like the colors were set to more warm or something like that. I don't know. It's cool to see like the insane contrast of how bright or he is in this game versus like some of the darker backgrounds, especially when you get into the spooky area. Right. Right. So yeah, it was a, it was a beautiful game. I think we've, we've already said a lot about that. And I think anyone listening to this is probably at least familiar with how it looks. If you're not, what are you fucking doing? And, um, it's a very aesthetically pleasing game. Just everything about it. I don't know. That's good. Um, that's really good. The, the, I think I, this would have been a complaint, um, uh, earlier on, but as I played more, I started to understand what was happening on the screen, but the screen does from time to time get very busy with some of the animations and I'm, and I'm not used to that or games that do get really, really busy on screen. I don't tend to like it. Uh, cause it gets a little too overstimulated to too much happening on the screen. And I get confused at where my hit boxes are and all this. So once I kind of figured out how the game manages that, like Ori for example, and this may be because I'm playing on LCDs, bright room, whatever it is, certain things, Ori is like glowing a lot. And sometimes it got a little confusing trying to figure out where Ori was versus where Ori's aura, the glow around her. I can't remember, um, it, where, where, where it, where it, it, it fell. So that's one little thing I'll notice that, that honestly could be down to the tech I'm using. I feel like, uh, this would look absolutely stunning on OLED, which I don't have anything. OLED. Yeah. If you're playing the game at less than 244 Hertz, then I don't even know what to fucking tell you. Yeah. Um, sound quality. I found it also pretty good. I play with this, uh, on the TV. So out in open air, I didn't put headphones in and it sounded great. Yeah. I have a sound bar. I don't have like crazy surround sound, but it was good. I do want to say, and I know, I think I've mentioned this on like 50% of our episodes, the game just like games don't really have very memorable music anymore. Like, do you remember, like, I don't remember anything like sound wise of it. I just remember it was like semi atmospheric and, and calming, but wait, unless it was like a dramatic thing, but I don't remember, like, I wouldn't pull up the soundtrack of this to like, take me back, you know, like maybe if I was working on something and I needed like, you know, like ambience music or something, but I wouldn't like, this isn't, this isn't like, I wouldn't put the CD in the, in on the, in that car. If I'm going on a first date to try to impress somebody. Yeah. You know, and I'm not very good with, with judging musical scoring for games and at face value, I think one comment I would make would be some of our older games, whether it had music, that is, that has become so iconic, like Zelda or super Mario or whatever it is. They, I feel like, and I, I don't want this to come across strange or weird or negative in any way, but like there were obvious limitations to what you saw visually and graphically. So it gave a little bit more room for the, the scoring, the musical scoring to come in and shine a little bit more. Right. So I think that's kind of how I'm seeing is that they were kind of almost on like a level playing fields. Right. So we were limited on what we could see. We were limited on what, what speakers and, and things they could actually produce totally. Both could have their own time to shine, but when you come into these newer games, there's so much going on that we can, can just so much going on visually that I don't, I don't know if there's as much room for your, your run of the mill score to really shine through. Well, there are obviously going to be exceptions to that. My, my immediate exception would be the Miles Morales. Yeah, that had a good soundtrack, but again, like, I don't, in thinking back now, I don't think that I specifically remember any songs from it. It was a good, really good soundtrack as well as this one, but it wasn't like, like, I don't, I could, I don't think I know the way that I do some older games, but again, it's also the amount of time that I've put into other games. Maybe I can tell you, I know the song that plays when you like get on the ship and hell divers has like a pretty memorable thing. Like it plays a song when you have to extract and get out off the planet, but where, where they're placing that music, I think makes a big difference as well. Right. It, I don't know if there's any music playing except from when you're extracting, I don't know if there's any music playing or any, any score, but behind it, um, when you're fighting, maybe not because the focus is now moved fully to what you're saying and what you're engaging with, um, via your controller. Um, and the memorable music they put on a loading screen. So that's the only thing you can, you can really take it. That's true. So valid. I definitely think that I think you make a valid, uh, point. Um, I think it's just, there's just something to also keep in mind with like, what music alone has to kind of compete with to a certain degree. Right. So, all right, everybody, welcome back. No, Hey, this is, this is, this is great. I really didn't think you could talk about sound that much for this game. That's wild. I've actually got a, can you mind if I open an Excel spreadsheet on screen share real quick? I've got a whole dissertation that go over voice acting. I put ha ha ha. Your favorite. I just put, you know, hashtag round two. We got, I just, I just, I just think it would have been better if you got somebody saying what it was. I just, I will always think that gibberish languages where there is, where they're portraying actual dialogue. I don't like, there are obvious exceptions to where the main focus is not the story or the dialogue like overcooked. They got that. That is, is purely a throwaway. There is no reason for them to get fucking Ron Swanson to be the onion King. There's no reason, but when they have a, uh, a game like this where the dialogue kind of matters, sub subtitles or not, I think it's going to, to me, it's going to hit more to have a voice, not necessarily a memorable voice or a well-known voice, but I think it hits harder and it is better if you can hear what they're saying. Yeah. In my opinion, I don't care much on this game about it. It's, it's okay on this game, but I can get what you're saying. There is a fair amount of dialogue in this game. So I, yeah. Hey man, you and me could probably voice act it. Yeah, let's, let's do it. Sign me up. I'll do it for a cheap. I'm going to get the meat of it. Yeah. Gameplay and mechanics. Gameplay and mechanics. My notes are pretty low on this one. I did finish this game quite a while ago, so I'm going to have to bounce off you a bit. Um, but from, but from what I remember it, it is a fun game and it gets very challenging and uh, like, like most platformers do. And there gets to a certain point where it may just be my inexperience with some of these newer platformers versus like your old Mario games or something. Um, I think my, my, my level of expertise is not quite there for some of those, like towards the end of the game mechanics that you have to do. And also when it comes to some of the puzzles and stuff they had, um, once you start getting into like trying to solve things and interact with things in a series of events where you're dealing with stuff that's like off screen, that gets really hard for me. So quick example, it would be like, I think there was something already had to interact with where they like kind of forced something to get knocked and you kind of had to aim this rock or something to like hit something kind of far down. But it was, it was basically off screen, but you had to remember where it was in relation to what you're currently seeing on screen now. So you would interact with this large object to have it fall and it would fall off screen, but you'd be aiming for something that you couldn't see. I don't remember that, but it was, it was, I'm trying to, it was, um, very close to that, that big bird. It was near that general area. I cannot give you specifics past that, but there were some puzzles where basically you're interacting or solving stuff that happens to also be off screen. And that's, that, that makes my brain hurt. So, and that's that right there is the extent of my notes gameplay. So, uh, that's all I got to say about, I definitely, I definitely came prepared is all I'm saying. So this game is, I put the, the big thing, it's very similar gameplay to the first game, but any platformer, of course, you know, it's going to be like that, but they did expand a couple of things. Like some of the abilities expanded a little bit and then there were a lot of returning abilities. They kind of revitalized the skill menu I put in the chat. Like I don't even, there's probably no point in even showing you if you scroll up a little, there's like the kind of the new skill menu, I guess it's different. And you have like a currency in this game to buy. It's not just, there's actually like a salesperson in the game that will sell you things and upgrades and stuff. It's kind of like an extension of the, of the previous. Right. Right. So it's just kind of like a more of the same, but in a different way where you're grabbing like a different coin or currency and, and you have to trade it to salesperson. You can't just go in the menu all the time and buy things. You have to like find him out in the game and, and buy your upgrades, which is unique, but not really, I don't know. It didn't really change too much other than you you're gated a little bit on how fast you can buy things. You can't just collect it and pull up the menu and buy something. I mean, sorry, it just kind of comes into like, it, it came across to me as like, you get your abilities faster depending on how much you want to grind. Yeah. To an extent, I think things give you less experience or less recurrency if you're in like an under leveled state. Gotcha. Gotcha. I mean, I didn't, I didn't try to test that. It just, from what I was saying, I was like, Oh, I can just start circling around and go to the different areas, fast travel back. Enemies respond and just keep kind of rinse and rinse and repeat that process. But yeah, I, I didn't have any, any, any, any issues with with its current state though. I thought it was a decent balance. It was a good way to like revitalize it without making it the exact same game with a new setting. It was, at least they did something to improve it some. They also did more side quests in this game. There were, I don't remember there really being any in the first game, but there's like almost a town that you go to where there's like, you know, families and, and stuff like that, that you can help by contributing either again, like another currency, a secondary currency you can contribute and have people like have their home built, I believe, and stuff like that. And then there were gauntlet fights that was new, where you get like almost like a longer battle where they just throw like waves of enemies at you. And, uh, I can't remember what you get, like an upgrade of an ability or something, but you get something specifically related to battling. I remember wanting to do them, but they were difficult because I think I was a little bit lacking in health and stuff at that time. Right. I did a couple of them. I can kind of remember what you got as well. I don't remember. It's okay. Yeah. Oh. And then another big thing, they put auto saves for Alec. And I really appreciated that. Yeah. That was what it's funny though. Cause you were saying that was, you got further in this game and you were saying that that was one of the things that would have made the game a lot more accessible and something you were used to. So yeah, I did, I did still run into some issues. Yes. It auto saved. You got auto save. However, it's still metroidvania ask where you die and not taking a save a new account. Also, when you come back into the game where you respond, it's like proximity based. So from where you died, you'll come in near that and kind of like rinse and repeat. Some, maybe it might be shifted a little bit, but I think I messaged you, I got into this cycle of, I was at the top of this massive crater. It was just one of those sections where you could kind of bounce, you know, down gradually or go straight down, you know, hundreds of feet in, in Ori terms or whatever. Um, way, way off camera into a pit. And basically I was at the top of this and I got knocked down and I couldn't, and I couldn't recover. I got all the way down into this swarm of enemies. And what became the problem was what had happened was the, the, the cycle of, of dying and reloading in it. It didn't give me full health. It gave me close to what I had, I think. And it didn't give me full energy. I can't remember the exact parameters, but it wasn't enough to get out of it unscathed easily. It was, it was, I was getting sworn by enemies. They were the ones that like fly around and zoom at you. I hate those. Yeah. Yeah. It was like three or four of those. Some of the jumping ones that like slam those like a couple of those. And then like your regular like slimes that are on the side and shooting projectiles at you. It was all of that. Yeah. It was all of that right. As I respond and it's like, it was just so bad. I think I spent a good 15, 20 minutes of just constantly dying over it, which it felt a lot longer because of how challenging it was to get out of it. But it was over multiple, like me getting frustrated and like, ah, I can't do it. If I keep going, I'm never going to play this game and finish it. It was just, it was just so frustrating. Luckily you were able to like go back. Right. I was able to, I was able to get out of that particular scenario, you know, get to where I could and, and, and get in force to save and do all this, that and the other. So I recovered from it, but it was, it was frustrating enough to where the, I don't think I get this that most gamers get after beating like a challenging boss or overcoming something challenging in a game. You get that, like that hit of dopamine or they're like, oh yes, I got it. I don't really get that on say, I don't, I don't get that when it's like, I'm fighting against just a bad series of events that I just described. Right. It was like a hard boss or something. Yes. I get that a little bit, but when it's like, oh, I'm just in this fucking death response spiral, getting out of that, I'm like, oh, yay. And I don't, it's not, it's not a, oh yay for me. It's like a, God damn it. That was the worst fucking thing ever. I need to put this game down before I snapped the steam deck over my knee. Like it was so frustrating. So I don't think I get the like dark souls satisfaction thing that a lot of people seem to really get, but maybe I'm a little bit like I do. I enjoy a challenge, but it has to be a fun challenge to begin with. If that makes sense. I don't want to challenge just for the sake of it being tough. And I feel like I agree. Speaking real quick, I should have brought this up on our backlog builders, but I played it. So for such a short time, it wasn't worth bringing up until this exact moment. Uh, I, on game pass, there was lives of Pete. Oh yeah. Game. Oh, it's a Pinocchio game. If they re-skinned Pinocchio, that's, they themed Pinocchio to be like dark souls-y. Wow. I didn't know that. I, wow, that's insane. So I got stuck on the first, it's not even a boss. It's like a brute. The first enemy that's not. The first enemy that's like, that's somewhat challenging. I could, which is like 10 minutes into the game. I couldn't beat it. I could not do it. And my goodness, for anyone who's played lives of Pete, it's like when you're still at like the train station, uh, and he's, it's like this, this, it's like a, uh, a large, like mechanical policeman. That's like maybe eight foot tall or something. I'm looking at a picture of it. Yeah. Big and brutish. Um, I don't even, I don't even think it was named. It's like not a name thing. It's just like, oh, Hey, here's the next big challenge. Make sure you know how to dodge. Like that's it. I could not beat it at all. Well, in your defense, he's not a real boy. He's not a real boy. So anyway, yeah. So I, I, I, anyway, back to what we were talking about. I don't, I don't, when we go into these like death response spirals, I just, there's no sense of like accomplishment because I feel like it's just, I don't even know what to, what to call it. There's an ad for that game that says one of, uh, lies of P review one of 2023 is most frustrating games as a hard sell, even for free on game pass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Okay. Let's talk about worries. So I didn't finish this game. You did not finish this game. I didn't, but you can kind of get the gist of where it was going. Yeah. I feel like it's very predictable. I could be wrong, but I have like a theory on, I might finish this game one day, but I just put it down because I something, the game wasn't overly difficult for me. I put it down because I was like, okay, sure. But the storyline, baby owl can't fly. Mama gets the wing. This was cool. I liked that part. You get like the, the feather that allows you to float from the first game. It was a feather from the mother owl and then you give it tape, duct tape it onto the bird and the bird can suddenly fly. It was cool. It was a really cute thing. I liked that you had like the returning characters from the first game helping a lot. Like the kind of like monkey, spider, monkey, spider, not a spider monkey helping out with gummo gummo. Yeah. Yeah. That's it, man. Yeah. Helping out like lifting logs and just generally making weird bodily movements. And then they were like a little happy family. They were, it was so, it was cute. So I didn't, I didn't finish. I didn't finish the first game, but I don't know if we talked about it. So in the first game, that like weird owl creature, not the owl, but like the thing that was like, or use surrogate mother died. Right. Yeah. I think so. I don't do that. I don't remember. I don't know. But then they came back. So I don't know what happened from the end of worry one. Cause I didn't finish. And I don't think we discussed two or two, everybody's back and good to go. So I, I guess whatever corruption or whatever happened in the blind forest got rectified. That that's a little bit, I wasn't sure about. Yeah. I'm assuming there's some, well here, that just plays into it a lot. Like, I feel like no character has permadeath if there are a good one in this game. And that's why I was like, okay, this ending is like, it's probably predictable. I don't know how the game ends. We don't have to even try to like throw predictions out there, but no, let's, let's, let's predict it. So I feel like, shall we, I feel like we need a little, okay. Little baby owl basically gets stomped to death, I think. Right. So yeah, you you're on a, you're on a quest to recover your baby owl that got lost. Um, cause Ori was fucking around and then found out. So they get separated, lost, and then, oh, there's a show that did this. And then you find the baby owl and they immediately get bludgeoned to death. It was a show about that? No. So what was, okay, hashtag tangent cast. There was a show years ago where the premise was one day all electronics cease to work around the globe. So nothing electronic would function. And that was the premise. And like the, the, the U S broke up the big factions and it was anyway, it was this long quest for us, for this girl to find her brother goes long journey. And then on the last episode, the first season, they find the brother and he gets bludgeoned to death by a giant bird. No. And then story reasons, the electricity comes back on allowing like car batteries to work and Oh my God. One of the military people's has a fucking like black Hawk helicopter and shoots the brother like a thousand times as he runs by and it ends the fucking series or the season that way. So they spent like 20 episodes finding this little shit and they get them. And then he like, goes in with like a machine gun shooting at the helicopter. And then it just gets torn apart with bullets. That was on cable television. Anyway, a little brother and if you know what show I'm talking about, hit us up three, two one back. And that was so dumb. So then they're like, yeah, okay. That is almost as dumb as what happened to brand or whatever his name is. Oh my God. So yeah. And that, that was, I was like, okay, that sucks. Game's over now. Right? I'm guessing. Cause you had like a boss battle kind of against the big, bad baby bird, boss, owl, whatever. Honestly, let me just back up. That's the, one of the coolest looking models for anything I've ever seen in a game. The bird. Yeah. Yes. So really cool looking. That was just so cool. Yeah. So if it's like, ow, it's avian in nature, but also has a lot of like, yeah. Vines and wood blight on it and stuff. Yeah. Almost like a, like an undead meets nature mix. And, uh, yeah, you, you, I really thought the game was ending there. Right. You, you do this right. You, you do this fight. The baby gets bludgeoned is like, well, then the story of life is this. And then that, that's it with a machine gun and a helicopter. Yeah. And then it makes a hard pivot to now you're on another set or four tasks. Yeah. To like find something here to like, maybe revive the baby owl. And I think I found the one that's like, yeah, to bring light back. Yeah. Yeah. I think they're, they're, they're using light for like life and souls and all that shit. But, um, yeah. So once, once it said, once it was like, oh, Hey, you have to go and find all this other stuff. Now my interest fucking spiral. Yeah. Me too. That was, so that all occurred and they're like, you have to go find these four things and they put them on the map for you of where you need to go. And they're like, you know, you need to find and do these four basically dungeons or tasks. And I was like, no, I don't, you don't fucking know how uncommitted I am to this right now. I don't have to do anything. Yeah. And I haven't played it since. Yeah. And it sucks because I enjoyed everything about the game up to that point. And I really, really loved the gameplay so much of this one, like the new weapons you had, like the skills you get, the expansion of everything was 10 out of 10 for me. And then that I just wish they would have played it in a little bit of a different way. I think it would have been more fine, but I think they would have been a lot better if they made that an ending boss fight. And if it's successful, the bird lived or whatever, then you can introduce new mechanics. If you wanted roll credits. And then if you wanted like to wrap up like an end game kind of thing, similar to what CSR is that after credits roll, there's more stuff, right? You can then go and find the four things as like a post game content. But for a self contained story, I agree. I think everything was fantastic up until that point. Yeah. That was it for me, man. And I feel like, so I could be wrong. And I'm really sorry if somebody is like a big fan of this game and they know it front to back. I feel like just generally the way things seem to go in this game, you revive the baby bird. And then in some way that mother owl, big monster, which owl thing is like, maybe the baby bird's mom from the first game reincarnated as evil or something. And it comes back and fucking mends the broken wing. I don't know. Again, I could be wrong and maybe that's the predictable thing, but it's like, it just feels like that's what's going to happen. And if it does, I'm content with it to not play it again. And if it doesn't, I don't even care to know. Don't tell me. Hit me up on Instagram, Twitter, X, and YouTube and let me know. Don't look up the ending. I'm doing it right now. No, the first article is like 50 fucking paragraphs. I'm not reading it. So yeah, I, yeah, I think it just went a little too far. I think it, it, some of these games, when they designed some of these games and how it's, there's how the progression kind of plays out. We had the similar thing on Death Stranding. Once you get to each section, it's like, there was that dot. Once we got out of chapter three, I think it was, and then the four where you start having to connect for people after coming off of like, okay, you have to meet these three different people then for each one, then you have to do like multiple tasks for them. We got all that done and then get to the next section. I go, Hey, we got to go meet some more people. And like, we thought we were going to have to go do more fetch quests and it didn't do that because they were smart enough to know, okay, we gave them the slog. Now we're going to pivot back to something a little bit more passive and let the story continue. I feel like that's where they, that's where they went wrong with Ori and the Will of the Wisps was, they just put too much in there. That took away the enjoyment of playing this game for like a, the caveat of it being a Metroidvania, somewhat of a linear progression of story, right? You got to get to this person, then unlock this thing, then that person unlocks this thing and so on and so forth. They did that perfectly, or at least, I think they did a good job of doing that. thing, then that person unlocks this thing and so on and so forth. They did that perfectly by adding the Metroidvania aspect into it. And then they, we came to a story ending beat, whether it was sad or not, it would have been fine right there. And I think not taking a step back and saying like, okay, I, this is somewhat satisfying to end here. We didn't need all the rest. And I, yeah, I think they could have left it alone. Yeah. But, all right, so let's go ahead and let's do final thoughts. What are your final thoughts on Ori and the Will of the Wisps? It's a good game. It's probably better than I'm giving it credit. I enjoyed every fucking second of it until I didn't. I, if you liked the first game, you're going to like this game a lot as well. And if you're upset that I didn't finish it, I'm very sorry. Hit me up on any kind of social media and I'll hand write you an apology. I'll get it back to you very quickly. You have my, you have my word. Oh man. I, I agree. With all of it? You're going to write an apology? With all of it, yep. We'll, we'll write handwritten notes. I'll get my eight-year-old to write mine. And no, I think it was really good. It's, I'm not a big, more of, again, more of a skill level thing. I'm not a big platformer, metroidvania player, but this one was enjoyable up until the point where it got tedious for me. Like I mentioned before, once I got to that ending story beat where I think it should have ended, it became daunting seeing the rest of it open up on that map. I, I was actually like, my stomach sunk a little bit. I know it was like, I, and I would have been okay if they made the game longer by padding it out prior to the false ending of it. Right. Right. But you know, I would have been completely fine with that. And I understand the game would have been too short if they didn't pivot the way that they did. But when I saw that, and there was so much more shit, I was just like, nah. Nah, nah, nah. I, I also, because I, I have kids and it's hard to find games that may be appropriate or... Hell divers. Yeah, I considered it for a minute. No, um, this is, this is a game that I think is, is okay for pretty much all age groups. You're okay with watching baby owls get stomped into the mud. Yeah. You know, if they, if they are able to hold the controller and kind of keep track with like the mechanics of this game, so you're maybe five, six and on. Um, I think this game is fine for, for kids. So I, I, I've been trying to be conscious of that as well, cause I'm looking for games that I can play with my kids as well, or that I'm okay playing in a space where they're hanging out. And this one, check all those boxes. So I wanted to call that out as well. Um, so yeah, I think that's a, that's a good place to end it. Solid. Right on. Um, so I hate doing this at the end and, uh, I, I meant to do it earlier, but I forgot to mention we got an email. Yeah. We got an email, bro. We're like a real fucking podcast. Yeah. The fun part is, uh, they emailed, uh, uh, we, we got a lovely email. Let me, let me pull it up. Uh, yeah. So we got an email, uh, from Nick over at the smashing game time podcast, another video game podcast. I believe they're a backlog one as well. I see hopped in and listened to a couple of their episodes, really good show. And he wrote, just wanted to thank you guys for some awesome podcast episodes. I love the inside episode from a few months back and really enjoyed the cocoon episode. Keep up the awesome work, Nick. Thank you so much. That was actually amazing. Sorry that I, I completely missed that, uh, that email, uh, after probably six weeks. And, uh, by the time this comes out, it'll be, uh, uh, uh, another couple of months. So I wanted to give that shout out. We're trying to do better about staying engaged, um, with, uh, with the people that hit us up and, uh, you know what? We're, we're getting it. I, I, I, I just wanted to, I just wanted to bring that to the table. It was really, really awesome. I was so excited when I saw that. I always appreciate input on what we're doing, you know, even if it's, yeah, that was positive input, but you know, I'm, I'm good with any input. I always appreciate it. It's good to hear from people. So, yeah, thank you. But yeah, it's, I mean, to, to show our thanks, I mean, Hey, go, go check out smashing game time. It's a, it's a fun time. They, uh, they cover lots of other games. They cover, um, I think they've had a couple episodes where it's, um, like, like outside of a one game, like a, like a top five or, or things that are happening in the news. I think they record every week. So they, they're a little bit quicker, um, to respond on things that are happening in the video game space than we are, but it's a real fun time. So go check them out. So wrapping that up, um, what's our next game. Actually. No, I know our next game. Tell me so late on me, poppy. So actually our next game, uh, is going to be rise of industry, which I think you're a little hesitant about. I think you're going to be taking a week off while I invite, uh, we're going to have a guest on very excited about it. So, uh, check out that I'm going to be joined, um, by, uh, a friend of mine, Matthew, he's gonna, uh, come talk to me about the rise of industry game and games in the vein of like a strategy and tycoon games. Uh, so check that out. That'll be our, our next one. And then James and I will return after that. So no, but you and I, uh, since you're going to be gone for the next episode, what we could do is go ahead and toss out what you and I will be playing and talking about next for the, the episode after next week, uh, which is actually going to be, um, Dave, the diver, which I mentioned earlier in the episode, but yeah, we're going to take a crack at Dave, the diver. I'm hoping, I'm hoping you really like it. So it'd be fun. Yeah. I don't know. You told me to go into it blind. So get ready. Oh, that's the, if for anybody who hasn't played this, honestly, just go find it wherever. Don't even look at any of the art. Just, just jump right in and then play it. It is a fantastic time. It's been out for a while on a lot of consoles, but it just came out on PS4 and PS5. So it's, I think there's going to be a lot of shit coming out about it again, because I know a lot of people are docked in on the Sony era and not getting in the PC and the switch and whatever other console. So yeah, it's very exciting. It's an old game to maybe some, but it's very new to some others. Right on. Uh, yeah, it'll, it'll be a fun time. Uh, check it out. If you haven't already, um, try your best to go into a blind from what I've played so far. It is, it is a hoot and a half, if I dare say it's a, it's a real fun game. Um, very funny. Uh, I I'm, I'm super excited for you to hop on. So yeah. All right. We can be found on our link tree link TR dot E slash three, two, one backlog, uh, X, Tik TOK, Instagram, hopefully Tik TOK still around by the time this comes out. Um, we're going to be pausing our, uh, Patreon while we do some restructuring. So keep an ear out for that. Uh, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna take another crack at, uh, at some other content. Uh, so, so stay tuned for that. And, uh, we'll, we'll make some announcements later on once we get that sorted. Uh, other than that, thanks for listening. That's, uh, that's going to wrap it up for us. Good day.