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At the end of 2021 Shamus and I had begun doing a collaborative stream discussing and analyzing Batman: Arkham Origins. I'm now uploading those archive videos to YouTube for increased visibility of one of my favorite series of streams. In the first episode, we marvel at the nonsensical nature of Penguin's hideaway and the frustrating boss fight that is Deathstroke.
Rewatching this stream makes me wish I had reached out to Shamus Young for such things much sooner. I’ve had a lot of great and fun streams with friends, but Shamus was someone special in that I had looked up to him for a long time, and the two of us had the same approach to analyzing a game’s narrative and design. He was far stronger than I am at pointing out logical flaws in the plot or world-building, but I always understood what he meant to convey and found our difference of perspective on game design complementary.
Batman: Arkham Origins was a perfect game to begin with because we both found it to be filled with shortcomings compared to its Rocksteady developed predecessors. It was also the perfect sort of game for a pair of fellows that enjoy constructive griping.
Listening to the two of us chatter away, it really makes me miss him and wish there had just been a bit more time. Granted, the loss of Shamus would always have been too soon, and in the end my regret is only that I had waited so long to muster the courage to reach out to him.
Still, I think he would be most honored if this memorial upload were accompanied by his most famous of activities: griping.
Chris first shares his thoughts on the Super Mario Bros. movie before digging into the nitty gritty with Joey about the Resident Evil 4 remake. The discussion is split into spoiler-free content and then spoiler content.
The onslaught of 2023 releases continues to strike, as Chris, Joey, and Steve gather to discuss the likes of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Like a Dragon: Ishin!, and Gal Guardians: Demon Purge. However, they also discover some titles of last year as well as some old favorites.
Get ready to call it one of our worst episodes of the year, because Chris and Steve have nothing worthwhile to talk about. We bounce around several topics with Sony's State of Play at the center, and how ultimately disappointing it was.
After two-and-a-half years of silence, I've not only released a new video, but my most extensive analysis yet. This post documents some of the lessons learned while giving some behind-the-scenes thoughts on the struggles presented in creating this deep dive look into one of my favorite games.
It is not a joke to say that this video has been two-and-a-half years in the making. More, actually. Though the primary footage I used from the Nintendo Switch version of the game is dated August of 2020, I had actually decided to make a video during a random play through in 2019. It was then that I first began to notice my little, nit-picking gripes with the Twilight Cathedral, but in order to properly convey my thoughts I needed footage from the 3D Zelda games. This is what kick-started the intended Zelda series, beginning with A Link to the Past and intended to conclude with Twilight Princess, then leading into Darksiders.
Unfortunately this did not come to pass for many reasons, some of which I’ve already gone into. Getting laid off pre-Covid, depression, and undue pressure upon myself with each video made led to the lengthy absence from YouTube. Nonetheless, in August of 2020, at least, I was contemplating just cutting ahead to Darksiders anyway.
In truth, I needed that time away to make this video. The baggage dragging me down and causing each video to be more stressful than enjoyable needed to be unpacked and sorted out. There was no way I’d have dared make a video this long, and I would have been tempted to give up at the script level as I tried to condense all of my thoughts into something far shorter.
It is not perfect, but this lengthy deep-dive look at one of my favorite games is precisely what I needed it to be.
Chris and Joey discuss many of the games they're drowning in as 2023 begins, highlighting recent releases such as Hi-Fi Rush, Dead Space, Metroid Prime Remastered, last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and more.
It's strange that it would take so long for me to watch an anime like Claymore, whose components are so precisely within my interest level. Unfortunately, the only thing holding it back are the adherence to exhausting shounen-fighting story-telling methods.
It’s a mystery why it has taken so long for me to watch and read Claymore. I’ve been hunting for high fantasy anime that can scratch the same itch as the original Record of Lodoss War OVAs for years, and while Claymore is more shounen-fighting style dark fantasy, it leans closer to my craving than most Isekai or video game influenced anime currently being produced. Perhaps I missed the day my university’s anime club had played the introductory four episodes, assuming they had shown it at all, but this show has only been on the fringes of my anime radar. I’d occasionally see it on streaming services, but for some reason I never gave it a watch.
However, as much as I enjoyed finally watching the anime and reading the manga, I certainly found the earliest arcs of the narrative more enjoyable than the latter. This has less to do with the quality of the characters or plot and more to do with the prominence of that shounen-fighting sub-genre in which this story occupies. In fact, I have Claymore to thank for helping me understand why I have lost interest in arguably the most popular anime and manga genre: shounen-fighting stories are exhausting.
If you’re not quite certain what I mean by “shounen-fighting”, I’m referring to works such as Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach, and My Hero Academia. Much like a Kung-Fu flick, the primary draw to these works are the fights. Unfortunately, the pace of these stories is to primarily focus on fights or training arcs with barely any reprieve. All plot and character development occurs while fists and blades are clashing, or while protagonists are endeavoring to develop some new technique or surpass the current limit of their power. Once one phase ends, the next must begin. The bulk of all narrative is in the fighting, posturing, or training. If you’re lucky, there’s an episode where the characters visit a ramen shop or something, though you’re more likely to just get a beach episode these days.
By the time I was in College and Naruto was the new hotness, I found this formula to be tiresome. Now that I’m an adult, I find it outright exhausting and the one thing holding Claymore back from “surpassing its limit”.
Chris, Steve, and Joey discuss what are mostly Chris' predictions for the year of 2023. We'll loop back around next year to see how right and how wrong he was!
Chris, Steve, and Joey gather to discuss their favorite games released throughout 2022! Plus, Chris gets a bit heated towards the end!
Joey and Chris look back on the major gaming news and events of 2022, discuss their own personal growth, and take a look at what's coming in 2023.
Though it will no doubt fly by the radar of most outlets, influencers, and players this year, Soulstice is definitely one of the most finely-tuned gaming experiences to be released in 2022.
There are times I have to wonder if my contrarian nature is somehow programmed into me, or if it is a mere coincidence that my tastes often rub more mainstream proclivities the wrong way. To say that I enjoyed Soulstice more than I enjoyed any lone Devil May Cry game is no doubt going to cause many character-action aficionados to scoff, and I most certainly had a better time with it than I had the first two Bayonetta titles. One might even call me “basic” for this feeling.
Admittedly, there are no doubt aspects of Soulstice that hold it back from being “as good” as, say, Devil May Cry 5 on a technical, objective level. Writing, for starters. Building upon the drama established in Devil May Cry 3 and familial lore added in Devil May Cry 4, there’s some sense of climactic finality to Devil May Cry 5 and its memorable characters that leaves fans old and recent with a level of catharsis and closure, and all delivered with a bombastic sense of style that other games fail to approach the imagination of.
Which, perhaps, would be one of the first perceived “failings” of Soulstice. It is far more subdued than its character-action compatriots, relying less on the roller-coaster zaniness and “how much more kuh-razy can these narrative loop-de-loops get?”, delivering instead a somber tale of a young warrior woman and her spectral sister’s bond. Briar is sardonic in expression and speech, contrasting with the innocent optimism and youthful wisdom of her deceased sister. Their mission is to investigate and put an end to the corruption and collapse of one of the world’s great three cities, a dimensional tear having opened above from which wraiths descend upon the populace to slaughter, contaminate, and possess.
Despite the abundance of demons or apocalyptic conflict in Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, respectively, the jovial wit of our protagonists always conveys a sense of fun in the carnage and makes a mockery of the villains responsible. The characters, setting, and narrative of Soulstice do not possess such levity, but I can assure you, the gameplay itself is such a delight that I believe it deserves to be held as an equal sibling to such franchises.
There's a lot here to enjoy as a unique experience delivered in a manner only video games can, and yet its greatest failures are ones that should have easily been avoided.
By now you have likely heard of Scorn’s greatest flaw: the lackluster combat. I’m not about to sugar coat it for you and say it’s not actually bad, just misunderstood. Not that it isn’t misunderstood, as few players seem to realize you can just stun an opponent and then sprint on past towards safety. That is a possibility most seem to ignore! However, coming to this realization doesn’t “fix” the combat, particularly as there are some areas or encounters where this will just drive you towards a dead end with several aggro’d monsters chasing behind. It just provides an option to skip most of the combat encounters.
There are some games in which bypassing combat is the whole point, and others where bypassing combat is, in itself, a different kind of skill-based challenge. That is not so with Scorn, and if it is, then Scorn is designed doubly poorly in this regard.
Note that the developers themselves emphasized throughout their marketing that Scorn “isn’t really a shooter”. There was a lot of discussion regarding the game being more of an adventure or puzzle game with only a bit of combat for atmosphere and tension. The problem is that, as soon as combat is introduced, it feels like the game is eager to drop several monsters in great quantities at the player at nearly every turn. At first it is successful in even the weakest of critters being terrifying to run into, but before long the game has thrown so many at the player that it simply becomes tiresome and annoying.
For some, this will be tolerable as the rest of the experience will be strong enough to carry them through. For others, however, Scorn will be one of the worst games they played and, if they manage to forge through to the end anyway, are unlikely to find its conclusion to have been worth it.
Chris and Joey once again unite to rant about the very structure of the Game Awards and why the industry deserves better, both in terms of jury and nominations. Also, just a lot of general good conversation about games.
After quite a hiatus Chris and Joey are back to discuss the Bayonetta voice actor drama, the Microsoft Activision-Blizzard acquisition, Scorn, and overall horror-themed media and games.
Chris is joined by Joey and Steve for a delightful discussion of games which they have been playing. Impressions on Xenoblade Chronicles, Metal Hellsinger, Halo Infinite, Soulstice, and more are given and debates are had. Listen in and enjoy!
