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• Episode 188 - Pretty Cute - Immortality

  Artists create, podcast, and destroy. Welcome back to the podcast where today we’re going to be talking about Immortality. Immortality is a game from Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Telling Lies and it follows in the same tradition as those games. Largely player-directed, the game involves watching clips of three films and footage associated with them in order to gain an understanding of what happened to the people involved. There is a set point at which the game shows you its credits, but whether you feel done at that point is largely up to you. Differing from the previous games, rather than inputting text to find clips, you click on elements in scenes to cut between them, following actors or props or other elements to see new things, and you can control the speed of playback and even play in reverse. Your understanding of these mechanics and how the internal logic of the match cuts works really determine what kind of agency you can exercise in solving the mysteries, so your milage may vary depending on how much you liked the core loop of Her Story in comparison to this one. Even so, the technical prowess on display here is still incredible, with a surprising dedication to capturing the feel of the eras of film each of the game’s three movies represent and performances that don’t feel like an imitation so much as part of film canon themselves. We’re going to be talking about the feeling of playing Immortality as compared to other games, the surprising directions the narrative takes and how it differed from our own interpretations, and in a spiritual successor to Haunting Those ROMs, we discuss what may be haunting THIS footage. Thank you for joining us again this week! Immortality has been on the list for a while because we have a particular soft spot for Her Story and how different that game felt to anything else, and while this is more refinement than innovation, it’s still a really impressive title and would probably give you a similar feeling to us if it is the first of Sam Barlow’s games you’ve played. Did you pick up on the game’s secrets? Did you struggle to rewind because you were playing with a mouse? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Monster Hunter Wilds, so I hope you join us then and that you have some free time in the coming weeks.

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• Episode 187 - Only Rock and Paper - Wanted: Dead

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• Episode 186 - Where Sailors Hang Out - Shenmue

  You like the podcast that much? Let me invite you to hell. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re doing another community requested episode (calling it Fanbruary at this point seems a bit silly) on Shenmue. An absolute classic action/adventure game that happened to be a blind spot for both of us. Shenmue centers on Ryo Hazuki, whose father is killed in the opening cutscene in a pretty rad martial arts fight. This sets up the events for you to uncover the reason behind the murder, which you do by talking to characters, learning schedules, driving forklifts and doing a little bit of fighting yourself. The variety of activities to do in this game are what made it so unique at the time and the fact that all of your verbs aren’t based solely in combat still makes it stand out against most triple A titles released even now. That being said, it’s an older game and the number of different control schemes and things to do may feel a bit unintuitive and clunky to you now. What hasn’t aged as badly, surprisingly, are the visuals, which contain a lot more detail than you would expect from the early days of the 3D games. From character models to buildings to interior spaces, the level of fidelity on display is really impressive for the time, even if it did mean the game had to be spread out across three discs on release. Overall this game is a piece of history for good reason, even if the experience isn’t as groundbreaking if you’ve been keeping up with modern games. We’re going to be talking about the more positive aspects of schlocky elements of the game’s story and dialogue, the good and bad ways in which the game’s time-based mechanics impact the play experience, and we lament the necessity in our society to just go get a job sometimes. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week! Shenmue is a game that really works best if you are able to dedicate the time to immerse yourself in it, and as a result this episode is coming a bit late and also we maybe didn’t get the premier experience it could offer. That being said, there is a lot to like here and even more to respect for the period this game came out, so all in all I think it was worth it. Are you a diehard Shenmue fan? What did you think of our speculation on further games in the series? Let us know over on the Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re wrapping up our suggested games for the year with Wanted: Dead, which should be a significant departure from everything else we’ve played this year, so much like Shenmue fans, I hope you’re in it for the variety, and that you join us then!

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• Episode 185 - Roast Beef, Some Chicken, A Pizza - Castlevania 64

  This is not the anger of a vampire killer. This is the podcast of all humanity! Welcome back to Fanbruary! Today, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, an oft maligned entry in the Castlevania series and the first to be in 3D. In classic Castlevania fashion, your goal is to infiltrate a castle and kill Dracula to restore peace to the world, so it doesn’t have a ton of innovation in that respect, but porting that formula to 3D means reworking the design of the platforming and combat, which it does surprisingly well…at times. Being on the N64, this game definitely has some amount of jank, but outside of some specifically problematic areas and letting the sometimes uncooperative camera slide, it feels better than you might imagine. Combat is very punchy, at least playing as Reinhardt, with his whip feeling satisfying to use and enemy effects like parts of skeletons falling off or heavy flinch animations giving meaningful feedback. The platforming is more hit and miss, but it’s serviceable enough that much of the early and midgame challenges feel fair and fun to get through. It hits some weird difficulty levels at points where the systems just aren’t prepared to keep up with the design, and it seems like a symptom of early 3D growing pains mixed with a team unsure how to work within the new limitations. Throw in the fact that the game hits that Castlevania cheesiness in its atmosphere and writing and the resulting game is much better than you may have been led to believe, which is to say, worth checking out, even if it isn’t the most exemplary entry in the series. We’re going to be talking about the importance of a game’s first level, the differences between playing this at the time and in the present, and we wonder if this game’s protagonist might also be a form of transportation. Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve still got more Fanbruary coming up even though it’s technically March now, so stay tuned. This was significantly more competent than we expected given its reputation, and overall had a pretty good time with it. Are you a big fan of the series and have opinions on this entry? Did you play this (or it’s weird expanded version) on the N64 or is this the first you’ve really considered it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Shenmue, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

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• Episode 184 - Bring Me the Cellos - Darkest Dungeon

  In time, you will know the tragic extent of my podcast, Welcome to Fanbruary! For our first listener suggested title this year, we’re talking about Darkest Dungeon, an RPG with Lovecraftian themes and light roguelike elements. Darkest Dungeon is known to be a difficult game, and it sticks to this design ethos with a commendable level of commitment. Depending on who you are, maybe too much commitment. With a large number of random factors affecting everything from what characters you get offered, the results of looting and in-combat effects, playing through the game’s dungeons feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of quirks, diseases, attacks and more triggering in a sequence that is almost always bad for you. This makes the climb for upgrades and ever-higher-leveled characters slow, but (I imagine) rewarding for dedicated players. And if you’re looking to become one of those dedicated players, don’t despair, or do despair, I guess, because the game’s non-gameplay elements do a great job of selling an atmosphere of hopelessness and fear, underscored by a charismatic and slightly shmaltzy narrator. This game has a lot going for it, but your enjoyment is ultimately going to be decided by your level of patience and how much you like turn based combat. We talk about the game’s difficulty and what parts of it we felt we could adequately prepare for, our biggest tribulations, and we discuss how part of the game could have been better if it was more like a pretzel. Thank you for joining us again this week, and thank you for all your submissions for Fanbruary! I’m sure this is starting to sound like a thing I just say every episode, but as usual, we are running a bit behind this month, but we will get four episodes out for Fanbruary that just might bleed a bit into March. This game tried and successfully defeated us, unfortunately, but I’d be curious to hear from more long-term players if they’ve found consistent strategies or what high level play actually looks like, given that I only exhibited low level play. Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, another game with a bit of a dismal atmosphere, but perhaps lightened by the jank of early 3D games, so we hope you’ll join us then.

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