Aw :-) My question got read (the geographical one). It does produce a lovely little dopamine hit. I usually listen to the podcast over the course of two evenings while doing dishes after putting my daughter to bed, and thank you Mixxman-ers for offering me this little moment of random "yay!" on a quiet evening. It's the little things. Cheers !
Charles I highly recommend using hammer if you're looking for something that's really satisfying moment to moment! I think that most of the appeal of monster Hunter comes from knowing what your weapon's goal is and executing that moment to moment in the fight, and for the hammer it's really easy to pick up: just charge it up and bonk the monster on the head over and over lol. it teaches you a lot about positioning to get the right hits on the right zones on monsters, and has pretty solid mobility which lets you panic roll out of bad situations while you're still learning monster moves
I'm about 25 hours into DA:TV and it's "good", and probably never could've been "great" given the expectations and sacrifices they had to make to get it out. If you liked DA2, DA:I, and/or ME2/ME3, it'll probably feel pretty comfortable. If you wanted another DA:O or BG3, then nope, not gonna find that kind of depth. As someone who beat the previous DAs 3+ times each, does it satisfy what I always wanted? Yes and no. I'm happy it exists though, and I'm having fun as a Dwarf Warrior Grey Warden throwing my shield around like Captain America.
45 hours in and it really chugs outside of those few and far between 'lets all go do a big mission' The dialogue is a killer, inquisition wasn't my favorite game but Cole or Sera as bland and boring as I found them weren't this monotonal and solely focused on their one single issue or as 'childrens tv talking directly to the television screen' "HEY GUYS I GUESS WE MESSED UP, WE'LL NEED TO ALL GO DO OUR OWN INDIVUDAL QUESTLINES IN THIS VIDEO GAME BEFORE WE CAN TACKLE THE NEXT BIG QUEST' followed again by a parade of "MY SINGLE ISSUE IS THE THING I MENTIONED IN THE FIRST FOUR SECONDS OF KNOWING YOU WOULD YOU LIKE TO DISCUSS IT AGAIN? IM A MAN BUT I HAVE THIS GRYPHON TO RAISE ISNT THAT FRUSTRATING'
I feel like I need to preface this by saying that Mass Effect 2 is my favorite game of all time, the original ME trilogy is my favorite series, I have bought and played all 3 (4 now) Dragon Age games as soon as they came out and have been (nearly) equally in love with Dragon Age as I am with Mass Effect. I LOVE Western RPGs. Elder Scrolls/Fallout, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, and Dark Souls/Elden Ring (which I think of as Western RPGs made in Japan) are some of my favorite games and series ever. I guess anyone can lie on the internet, but I felt the need to show everyone my "real gamer" card before I defended Veilguard... In summary, I love Veilguard despite all of the flaws. I don't think the character writing is worse than other Dragon Age games. Worse overall than The Witcher, BG3, or Disco Elysium? Hell yeah its worse than those, but worse than Dragon Age games? I don't see it. But also I like Neve and Lucanis better than I like Wyll and Astarion. So, its a mixed bag for me. The art style isn't doing it for me. I agree with people that are saying its too Pixar-y. Its not bad though. Its also extremely subjective and people are talking about it like its an indisputable fact that its uglier or worse than Inquisition. I absolutely HATE that they got rid of Dragon Age Keep and that you only get to make THREE choices for your world state and they are all from Inquisition. Dragon Age Keep was LITERALLY MADE to future-proof the series and your world state. I am very disappointed with this aspect and I wish my choices from the first 3 games mattered. You're telling me that all this Blight shit is happening, Morrigan is here helping, and her husband/the greatest Grey Warden to ever live ISN'T HERE??? I don't need a cameo. Just a SINGLE line of dialogue that's like, "Man its crazy that the Hero of Fereldan is holding the line so effectively in the North with such a small force of other Wardens. Too bad they can't help here because then the entire North would collapse into chaos." How hard is that? Not being mentioned at all is not just disappointing, its actually kind of immersion-breaking with what is happening in the story of the world. Overall, I am really enjoying my time though. As a long time fan of both BioWare and Dragon Age, I like this game more than Origins or ME1 (both games I love) and less than Inquisition, DA2, ME2, or ME3.
While Sarah and Kelsey did a decent job at selling MH Wilds to Charles, they forgot to hype up the stars of the show: THE MONSTERS! The MH dev team has done such a fantastic job over the years giving each monster unique ecology and behavior and music theme, and visual and fight design that fans usually settle on their personal favorites. I mean, just in the Beta you fight a wyvern with a railgun for a head!! Customizing your hunter's build with diverse skills from great looking armor and weapons from said monsters is also a big draw.
Glad Sonic X Shadow Generations got some praise! It’s a short game but as a lifelong sonic fan I think it’s genuinely the most consistently great 3D sonic game Sega has ever put out. I don’t expect to see it on the Two Tens but glad it didn’t just get missed completely
It is impressive just how tight it is as a game. It's not my favourite Sonic game, but it's probably the modern Sonic game I found myself apologising for the least.
"Who wants this Sonic and Shadow code? Anyone?" "Uhh.... oh.. okay I guess. I guess I'll take it" "Kelsy... I CANNOT believe how wild you are about Sonic and Shadow!"
Kelsey being CB main was so wonderful to hear. None of my friends grasp the majesty that is the CB. CB is very much a chore weapon and I have such a blast getting to final forms of my weapon to deal massive damage. It's like I'm playing a mini game inside another game. It's never not satusfying to pop the monster in the head with that big elemental discharge attack, and with Wilds, we get even more defensive ways to get to that big attack. Charles just needs to try a different weapon lol.
For a 50-60 hour rpg such glowing impressions of the first 10-20 hours got a really long discussion. I appreciate the coverage but a more complete look would be nice. A lot of times you don’t have the time to come back with updated impressions. Some of the early complaints seem like they would only become bigger after prolonged playing. It’s also weird to see them abandon the tenants of what defined the dragon age games, not following up on previous threads, reducing the narrative weight, and changing the style of game. I’m not sure why people are so hand wavy of these aspects. God of War has been a series imo that has paid respect to the legacy of its characters and story that other games should be copying. I write all of this with no intention of playing the game. My opinion was formed from listening to others discuss it. Take from it what you will. Thanks for another great episode!
I adore Infinite Wealth and the LAD series overall (duh!). Kelsey is spot on in her reading of IW, the ending (and, consequently, story overall) is weak and messy - reminiscent of Yakuza 2 and 4, imo. Still an incredible game though!
I'm curious to see how veilguard opinions develop. From what i've heard the detailed character creator and fun combat make a good initial impression but it seems like the combat does get repetitive over time and the dialogue and story aren't overly exciting. I really loved origins back in the day but I generally have low expectations for new bioware games so i'll probably just wait till it hits gamepass and see what I think
Wow so happy to hear Sarah picked up Heavy Bowgun, best weapon no contest!! Bowguns got a big overhaul in Wilds and they felt really nice in the beta. I loved the chunky focus shots and that every HBG seems to come with a shield mod now. Also the Wyvernheart mode is one of the most satisfying things to pop off in the game.
This is so funny about the Insect Glaive. It's always been such a difficult weapon to actually be efficient with. I remember Isla at EZA was given flak sometimes for jumping over things with Insect Glaive but it's just how it is sometimes lol
I'd like to communicate to Charles that the gameplay loop/satisfaction in MH:W (assuming Wilds will be the same) is goal=defeat Monster A>get wrecked by Monster B and think it's impossible to ever beat. New Goal=Farm specific parts of Monster A (eg tail/wings/talons)>Defeat Monster B wondering why you ever initially had an issue>New Goal=get absolutely wrecked by Monster C Rinse and repeat. You essentially feel like you can never beat something and then wonder why it was ever an issue. Similar to a Soulsborne except instead of farming or practing on mobs. Its weaker boss monsters you grind. Also as mentioned there is a tactical aspect. Except it's you can either brute force wear down a Monster, OR surgically carve off parts to weaken it down to an easier catch/win😊
More power to everyone enjoying DAV with whatever experience they have or don't have with the series. Every hour I continue into Dragon Age the worse it gets, I'm not even a massive dragon age fan but its offensively bad, I have no idea why anyone chooses to do the 'your character says zero of the words you chose when you chose your response' its almost completely random at some point. Its a bummer that we lose great RPG's who chase becoming a bland console action game and then games media who never touched the series jump on and are pumped for every game turning into some Ur-story or Ur-game, minimal RPG choice, minimal character building, completely empty characters with marvel dialogue who just repeat their single issue over and over again with zero friction, minimal conflict. We've seen RPG's be made so so so well in the last 5 years, Bioware doesn't have to destroys its characters and lore for money, Baldurs Gate made plenty money without ten years of waiting. Everyones completely fine when the franchise they never touched eats itself to become something vaguely akin to every mindless AAA action game they've played before to finally give it a change but if it happened to a franchise they actually like they would lose their mind.
Haley was brilliant. Thank you. I'm loving my first playthrough of Veilguard. Ticking a lot of the right boxes for me, although combat starting to lose its lustre 40 or so hours in.
Dragon age is my game of the year so far. Sonic x shadow is number 2. Shin megami tensei vengeance is 3. So far. But I won’t play Metaphor until January… bc I just played most of the SMT games in a row so I need a JRPG break
For me, MH combat is almost turn based and the satisfying bit is learning what a monster can do, how long it takes, and when I can take turns with my weapon to do damage while not getting hit. It’s also very much like a fighting game, where you learn your character (weapon) moveset and apply that knowledge against the moveset of another character (monster).
@ And because you can get locked in a combo if you get hit, ideally you avoid that in fighting games. In MH getting hit will interrupt what you are doing to various degrees of severity (including getting comboed to death), so having good awareness and defense is similarly rewarded.
Kelsey was almost completely right on the baseball talk, and of course it’s debatable, and impossible to prove, but Ohtani is most definitely NOT “better than Babe Ruth and it’s not even close”. Look up the numbers, hitting and pitching. You’ll be surprised maybe.
@@kooshkaboose it's way worse here. The dialogue is both generic and repetitive... characters just repeat the same shit ALL. THE. TIME. And it's written for 13-year-olds.
@@kooshkaboose right, i thought the level of quality of dialog is the same, just different content targeted to different demographics (which is a baffling decision for an established ip with a huge fanbase).
I honestly only played the intro of MHW as I have already got the week off next year to play it at launch.....can not wait to sink another 3-400 hours into that world!! Sorry, Sarah also worked on Monster Hunter: World?? Adoration doubled instantly :D
Really loving Dragon Age Veilguard. The story is so great and the new characters really grow on you. Balera was so annoying at first but when you do one of her side quests it just changed how I viewed her in the game and love her character now. Taash reminds me of a Karlach and such great acting on her part. So many other memorable points so far and I am just 30 hours in. Can't wait to dig in more.
I think i've only ever noticed that the stitching looks better from one side instead of the other. otherwise I've never noticed a softness or material difference and wouldn't assume there's a "font" or "back" lol. Now I'm going to be feeling each of my towels like a crazy person.
Baseball would be a lot more fun to watch if there was a salary cap. The big market teams can just buy their superstar teams while all smaller market teams never have a chance. It really ruins the sport for me. Hockey is my favorite thing to watch and even love it more now that my 6 year old is getting into playing hockey.
I don't disagree. It doesn't always work -- the 2023 New York Mets spent an insane amount of money and didn't even sniff the playoffs -- but it's definitely an annoying disadvantage for the smaller market teams. (Although my take continues to be that they're all billionaires, they should spend the money. There should be a salary FLOOR too)
I went to high school in Keller, and before our football game against Southlake in 03 or 04 they made shirts that said "I would have gone to Keller... but then my dad got a real job!"
Veilguard is exceptionally let down by its writing. Full disclosure, I think this game is - at best - deeply mediocre. I think the combat is lackluster and poorly put together, particularly with how spongy enemies can be, and how same-y the various classes feel to play. I also think the graphical style really doesn't fit with the type of story this is trying to tell - all the characters tend to have the gormless half-smile on their face the entire time that I personally find really distracting. Having said that, those are me problems, and I can totally see a lot of people enjoying the combat and not being bothered by the visuals. The writing though . . . it's just bad. It's bad in structure, it's bad in concept, it's bad in delivery. Just bad, bad, bad. For example, there's a point early on where your character settles into their room and you need to set up little tchotchkes from your character's past. Every time you place one, you then get dialogue options where your character ruminates - at length - about what each item means to them. Not only are these descriptions extremely saccharine and overdone, there are no other characters around while you do this. Your character is alone in a room. It's the most bizarre thing I've seen in a long time. And I won't say this could never work. If this had been held back until you had someone with you, maybe a romance option who expressed curiosity about the items and you had the option of detailing your character's past a bit, then it might have been fine. Instead you're talking to a literal fish tank.
@@brucewayne404 You are trying to be sarcastic, but I guarantee you have never heard it like this. Most other instances at least have some gameplay purpose like trying to draw your attention to something important in the environment. If it isn't doing that, then the callout is at least short, maybe one or two lines. Here, it's an entire damn soliloquy. Don't believe me? Here's the dialogue about a chess set, word for word: "A peddler gave this to me after I saved his caravan from bandits. He told me the nobles think of ruling like a game of chess, that each move determined what mark humanity would leave on the world. We fight everything. We're at war with the gods, oppress the elves, battle the Antaam. If we treat everything like a war-game, the only marks we'll leave are scorch marks." First of all, who writes like this? It's awful. Second of all, nobody talks like this. And third - you are the only person in the room when you say this. *Who are you talking to?*
Part that kills me is how much repetition there is in the writing. "An Eluvian? That's something Solas uses." "Ah, an ancient elven mirror that helps you get from place to place. Solas must be using this." "Then we should go through it to get where Solas is." "Let's go through the Eluvian, Rook." So many conversations feel like this.
The tone of this game is 100% YA literature. It is much different than other DA games. It's why the Mass Effect lead came out ON LAUNCH DAY and reiterated that the new ME will have a "mature tone."
If SEGA has layoffs or eventually closes its doors, they deserve ten times more scrutiny and hate for it because they are literally sitting on the chao garden as a money printer IP and REFUSE to do anything with it. They could turn it into the most cynical form of live service trash mobile slop and fans would only be pissed because they'd HAVE to play it just to get some more chao garden. Don't know what's going on internally over there but I don't know a modern Sonic fan who isn't disappointed with every entry not including a chao garden. With this Generations remaster giving some more love to chao references than any previous entry SINCE Adventure 2, I'm actually getting my hopes up that Frontiers 2 is going to bring it back. And if it doesn't, like Sarah, I will boycott.
They're saving chao garden for a Sonic Adventure 3 as they've said. Don't expect it if there is ever a Frontiers 2, they verbally stated that the next time there will be a Chao Garden is when they finally make Sonic Adventure 3. I'm glad they're not making a mobile game because as you said it'd have microtransactions etc. It works better as an in game incentive for replayability. Anyway, it feels like they're building up to an Adventure 3 slowly. Frontiers added a hub world like Adventure 1. They brought back other playable characters in the Frontiers dlc to play around with that. The dlc also had the spin dash. And now Shadow Generations has level design reminiscent of Sonic Adventure games. I don't think the next Sonic game is an Adventure game. But I think the one afterwards or the one after that will be. Anyway, don't boycott games like Shadow gens. This game is a huge step in the right direction for actual Sonic gameplay design. A Chao Garden isn't everything, and they've already explicitly told you WHEN it will come back (Sonic Adventure 3). Sonic Frontiers was not given the time it needed to be made, and was released a year earlier than the devs were hoping, with a team of like 60 people developing it. Frontiers' success is literally what made SEGA decide to give Sonic Team a budget and developer increase. So we'll see the result of that with the next game (and we got a glimpse of it with Shadow Gens). Which will inevitably lead us to an Adventure 3. The chao garden is great marketing, and the Adventure title is as well. They want to combine both of them for a blowout success when they finally make Adventure 3.
The moment-to-moment dialogue and writing in Veilguard was genuinely bad most of the time. So much of the dialogue is like: "Are you OK?" "Yes." "Okay. Let's do this." Just over and over again. Half of the time when you talk to companions it's just "How are you doing?" The story beats are... okay I guess. But it doesn't feel at all like Dragon Age. And wait until the post-credits scene. LOL. Voice acting is hit or miss. Harding sounds like she's 13 years old, like she aged in reverse. Morrigan is OK but her characterization is a lot different from past games. Taash is incredibly annoying (and that has nothing to do with the non-binary elements; Taash is just a juvenile, obnoxious character who is a big jerk to other characters, which is weird because for the most part Rook *cannot* be a jerk to any of the companions. You hear Taash ripping on other characters and you never get the chance to say STFU). Combat is fun at first but gets old. The environments LOOK amazing, but the actual level design is bad. Most of the areas don't seem like "real" places... like areas in cities you can only get to with ziplines? It's weird. Hair looks incredible, some of the best I've seen. Overall I'd give it a 5.5/10. EDIT: is Haley under the impression that full control of other characters only started in Inquisition? You had full control in every game up until now, which is another big shortcoming of this game. It's too streamlined.
I could not of disagreed more with the opinions shared about that game. Origin's is a hallmark in story telling. Veilguard killed the series. I'd vote to not consider It cannon to the universe. It's got "New Disney" all over it. Hardest of passes.
This podcast has a lot of “oh I only played 3 hrs but here’s my opinion”, and it just doesn’t work for a 50+ hrs story-driven game. I’m sure all of you are incredibly busy, but if you wanna cover a game, at least show some effort, otherwise don’t even bother…
I hope not. As much as I love MinnMax I can't help but feel turned off when they insert anything political. It isn't the reason we all listen to the show.
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Aw :-)
My question got read (the geographical one). It does produce a lovely little dopamine hit.
I usually listen to the podcast over the course of two evenings while doing dishes after putting my daughter to bed, and thank you Mixxman-ers for offering me this little moment of random "yay!" on a quiet evening.
It's the little things.
Cheers !
This is the best show on yt
Any help sharing it is appreciated!
Second to Taskmaster
@@David-uc6sg amazing take. i agree
@@David-uc6sg Second to none sir.
True and real
Sarah and Haley are national treasures. Great to see them in the same discussion.
Both Haleys!!
Wait, did you mean Kelsey? 😅
@@mart8577 No McLain. I know she’s not in the episode. She’s just a delight regardless
Are u a real person?
Really glad Haley was on to talk Veilguard (not a slight), would love to hear her thoughts on the full game down the line.
Charles I highly recommend using hammer if you're looking for something that's really satisfying moment to moment! I think that most of the appeal of monster Hunter comes from knowing what your weapon's goal is and executing that moment to moment in the fight, and for the hammer it's really easy to pick up: just charge it up and bonk the monster on the head over and over lol. it teaches you a lot about positioning to get the right hits on the right zones on monsters, and has pretty solid mobility which lets you panic roll out of bad situations while you're still learning monster moves
I'm about 25 hours into DA:TV and it's "good", and probably never could've been "great" given the expectations and sacrifices they had to make to get it out. If you liked DA2, DA:I, and/or ME2/ME3, it'll probably feel pretty comfortable. If you wanted another DA:O or BG3, then nope, not gonna find that kind of depth. As someone who beat the previous DAs 3+ times each, does it satisfy what I always wanted? Yes and no. I'm happy it exists though, and I'm having fun as a Dwarf Warrior Grey Warden throwing my shield around like Captain America.
45 hours in and it really chugs outside of those few and far between 'lets all go do a big mission'
The dialogue is a killer, inquisition wasn't my favorite game but Cole or Sera as bland and boring as I found them weren't this monotonal and solely focused on their one single issue or as 'childrens tv talking directly to the television screen' "HEY GUYS I GUESS WE MESSED UP, WE'LL NEED TO ALL GO DO OUR OWN INDIVUDAL QUESTLINES IN THIS VIDEO GAME BEFORE WE CAN TACKLE THE NEXT BIG QUEST' followed again by a parade of "MY SINGLE ISSUE IS THE THING I MENTIONED IN THE FIRST FOUR SECONDS OF KNOWING YOU WOULD YOU LIKE TO DISCUSS IT AGAIN? IM A MAN BUT I HAVE THIS GRYPHON TO RAISE ISNT THAT FRUSTRATING'
I feel like I need to preface this by saying that Mass Effect 2 is my favorite game of all time, the original ME trilogy is my favorite series, I have bought and played all 3 (4 now) Dragon Age games as soon as they came out and have been (nearly) equally in love with Dragon Age as I am with Mass Effect. I LOVE Western RPGs. Elder Scrolls/Fallout, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, and Dark Souls/Elden Ring (which I think of as Western RPGs made in Japan) are some of my favorite games and series ever. I guess anyone can lie on the internet, but I felt the need to show everyone my "real gamer" card before I defended Veilguard...
In summary, I love Veilguard despite all of the flaws.
I don't think the character writing is worse than other Dragon Age games. Worse overall than The Witcher, BG3, or Disco Elysium? Hell yeah its worse than those, but worse than Dragon Age games? I don't see it. But also I like Neve and Lucanis better than I like Wyll and Astarion. So, its a mixed bag for me.
The art style isn't doing it for me. I agree with people that are saying its too Pixar-y. Its not bad though. Its also extremely subjective and people are talking about it like its an indisputable fact that its uglier or worse than Inquisition.
I absolutely HATE that they got rid of Dragon Age Keep and that you only get to make THREE choices for your world state and they are all from Inquisition. Dragon Age Keep was LITERALLY MADE to future-proof the series and your world state. I am very disappointed with this aspect and I wish my choices from the first 3 games mattered. You're telling me that all this Blight shit is happening, Morrigan is here helping, and her husband/the greatest Grey Warden to ever live ISN'T HERE??? I don't need a cameo. Just a SINGLE line of dialogue that's like, "Man its crazy that the Hero of Fereldan is holding the line so effectively in the North with such a small force of other Wardens. Too bad they can't help here because then the entire North would collapse into chaos." How hard is that? Not being mentioned at all is not just disappointing, its actually kind of immersion-breaking with what is happening in the story of the world.
Overall, I am really enjoying my time though. As a long time fan of both BioWare and Dragon Age, I like this game more than Origins or ME1 (both games I love) and less than Inquisition, DA2, ME2, or ME3.
Kelsey’s point on sports and small talk really can’t be overstated. You can talk to almost anyone about sports, such a good ice breaker.
Really enjoying Dragon Age so far. Excited for the meet up!
Whoa, hey thanks!
While Sarah and Kelsey did a decent job at selling MH Wilds to Charles, they forgot to hype up the stars of the show: THE MONSTERS! The MH dev team has done such a fantastic job over the years giving each monster unique ecology and behavior and music theme, and visual and fight design that fans usually settle on their personal favorites. I mean, just in the Beta you fight a wyvern with a railgun for a head!! Customizing your hunter's build with diverse skills from great looking armor and weapons from said monsters is also a big draw.
I beg Charles to try Origins if he's missing story choices in Veilguard.
Origins is so good
I was a huge sports fan for years but fell off after covid. Honestly? I dont miss it.
It's...a lot worse with the current gambling-heavy climate around it unfortunately :(
Thanks for bringing in De Boom for The Veilguard discussion!
Glad Sonic X Shadow Generations got some praise! It’s a short game but as a lifelong sonic fan I think it’s genuinely the most consistently great 3D sonic game Sega has ever put out. I don’t expect to see it on the Two Tens but glad it didn’t just get missed completely
It is impressive just how tight it is as a game. It's not my favourite Sonic game, but it's probably the modern Sonic game I found myself apologising for the least.
"Who wants this Sonic and Shadow code? Anyone?"
"Uhh.... oh.. okay I guess. I guess I'll take it"
"Kelsy... I CANNOT believe how wild you are about Sonic and Shadow!"
ALWAYS LOVE A HALEY DA BOMB APPEARANCE
Kelsey being CB main was so wonderful to hear. None of my friends grasp the majesty that is the CB. CB is very much a chore weapon and I have such a blast getting to final forms of my weapon to deal massive damage. It's like I'm playing a mini game inside another game. It's never not satusfying to pop the monster in the head with that big elemental discharge attack, and with Wilds, we get even more defensive ways to get to that big attack. Charles just needs to try a different weapon lol.
For a 50-60 hour rpg such glowing impressions of the first 10-20 hours got a really long discussion. I appreciate the coverage but a more complete look would be nice. A lot of times you don’t have the time to come back with updated impressions. Some of the early complaints seem like they would only become bigger after prolonged playing.
It’s also weird to see them abandon the tenants of what defined the dragon age games, not following up on previous threads, reducing the narrative weight, and changing the style of game. I’m not sure why people are so hand wavy of these aspects. God of War has been a series imo that has paid respect to the legacy of its characters and story that other games should be copying.
I write all of this with no intention of playing the game. My opinion was formed from listening to others discuss it. Take from it what you will.
Thanks for another great episode!
Tenets.
I adore Infinite Wealth and the LAD series overall (duh!). Kelsey is spot on in her reading of IW, the ending (and, consequently, story overall) is weak and messy - reminiscent of Yakuza 2 and 4, imo. Still an incredible game though!
23:47 but Kyle, what if you found out you can THROW the shield and bounce it off enemies multiple times? Best secret if the warrior class IMO
I'm curious to see how veilguard opinions develop. From what i've heard the detailed character creator and fun combat make a good initial impression but it seems like the combat does get repetitive over time and the dialogue and story aren't overly exciting.
I really loved origins back in the day but I generally have low expectations for new bioware games so i'll probably just wait till it hits gamepass and see what I think
Excellent Dragon Age discussion
Wow so happy to hear Sarah picked up Heavy Bowgun, best weapon no contest!! Bowguns got a big overhaul in Wilds and they felt really nice in the beta. I loved the chunky focus shots and that every HBG seems to come with a shield mod now. Also the Wyvernheart mode is one of the most satisfying things to pop off in the game.
This is so funny about the Insect Glaive. It's always been such a difficult weapon to actually be efficient with. I remember Isla at EZA was given flak sometimes for jumping over things with Insect Glaive but it's just how it is sometimes lol
I'd like to communicate to Charles that the gameplay loop/satisfaction in MH:W (assuming Wilds will be the same) is goal=defeat Monster A>get wrecked by Monster B and think it's impossible to ever beat. New Goal=Farm specific parts of Monster A (eg tail/wings/talons)>Defeat Monster B wondering why you ever initially had an issue>New Goal=get absolutely wrecked by Monster C
Rinse and repeat.
You essentially feel like you can never beat something and then wonder why it was ever an issue. Similar to a Soulsborne except instead of farming or practing on mobs. Its weaker boss monsters you grind.
Also as mentioned there is a tactical aspect. Except it's you can either brute force wear down a Monster, OR surgically carve off parts to weaken it down to an easier catch/win😊
More power to everyone enjoying DAV with whatever experience they have or don't have with the series.
Every hour I continue into Dragon Age the worse it gets, I'm not even a massive dragon age fan but its offensively bad, I have no idea why anyone chooses to do the 'your character says zero of the words you chose when you chose your response' its almost completely random at some point.
Its a bummer that we lose great RPG's who chase becoming a bland console action game and then games media who never touched the series jump on and are pumped for every game turning into some Ur-story or Ur-game, minimal RPG choice, minimal character building, completely empty characters with marvel dialogue who just repeat their single issue over and over again with zero friction, minimal conflict.
We've seen RPG's be made so so so well in the last 5 years, Bioware doesn't have to destroys its characters and lore for money, Baldurs Gate made plenty money without ten years of waiting.
Everyones completely fine when the franchise they never touched eats itself to become something vaguely akin to every mindless AAA action game they've played before to finally give it a change but if it happened to a franchise they actually like they would lose their mind.
@@fear2218 Andromeda brother, everyone pretends Andromeda doesn't exist, Andromeda was worse than Veilguard
Haley was brilliant. Thank you. I'm loving my first playthrough of Veilguard. Ticking a lot of the right boxes for me, although combat starting to lose its lustre 40 or so hours in.
We bring the Boom!
Loved the DA chat!
Dragon age is my game of the year so far. Sonic x shadow is number 2. Shin megami tensei vengeance is 3. So far. But I won’t play Metaphor until January… bc I just played most of the SMT games in a row so I need a JRPG break
great great great episode
For me, MH combat is almost turn based and the satisfying bit is learning what a monster can do, how long it takes, and when I can take turns with my weapon to do damage while not getting hit.
It’s also very much like a fighting game, where you learn your character (weapon) moveset and apply that knowledge against the moveset of another character (monster).
An apt comparison, since fighting games are also turn based, the turns just happen very quickly and in real-time.
@ And because you can get locked in a combo if you get hit, ideally you avoid that in fighting games.
In MH getting hit will interrupt what you are doing to various degrees of severity (including getting comboed to death), so having good awareness and defense is similarly rewarded.
"I can make myself so hot" said the hot person
Kelsey was almost completely right on the baseball talk, and of course it’s debatable, and impossible to prove, but Ohtani is most definitely NOT “better than Babe Ruth and it’s not even close”. Look up the numbers, hitting and pitching. You’ll be surprised maybe.
The clap out editing was really good.
It's an old tradition for Ben
The dialog in dragon age is so bad.
always has been in bioware games.
@@kooshkaboose it's way worse here. The dialogue is both generic and repetitive... characters just repeat the same shit ALL. THE. TIME. And it's written for 13-year-olds.
@@kooshkaboose right, i thought the level of quality of dialog is the same, just different content targeted to different demographics (which is a baffling decision for an established ip with a huge fanbase).
@@SpookyApparition So...every DA game ever made? Lol
there is very little debate amongst the fanbase. there is a lot of yelling from people outside the community
YES!!! Love Da Boom!!! Please make her a regular!!! She is incredible!!!
Algo
that intro is so darn good!!!
Don’t worry Hanson, the DKC2 soundtrack does indeed rock 🤙🏻
"Die! Die! Game of the year!"
love that sarah made her plushies kiss
I honestly only played the intro of MHW as I have already got the week off next year to play it at launch.....can not wait to sink another 3-400 hours into that world!!
Sorry, Sarah also worked on Monster Hunter: World?? Adoration doubled instantly :D
I can confirm Sonic and Shadow kiss in the new game
Man Veil guard is so disappointing. Just nonstop cringe dialogue and a less realistic cartoony marvel vibe. Such a letdown
Really loving Dragon Age Veilguard. The story is so great and the new characters really grow on you. Balera was so annoying at first but when you do one of her side quests it just changed how I viewed her in the game and love her character now. Taash reminds me of a Karlach and such great acting on her part. So many other memorable points so far and I am just 30 hours in. Can't wait to dig in more.
I think i've only ever noticed that the stitching looks better from one side instead of the other. otherwise I've never noticed a softness or material difference and wouldn't assume there's a "font" or "back" lol. Now I'm going to be feeling each of my towels like a crazy person.
I recommend Charles avoid fancy or complicated weapons. Just turn your brain off an pick Hammer or Longsword.
Baseball would be a lot more fun to watch if there was a salary cap. The big market teams can just buy their superstar teams while all smaller market teams never have a chance. It really ruins the sport for me. Hockey is my favorite thing to watch and even love it more now that my 6 year old is getting into playing hockey.
premier league in england is the same. really kills the competition when these Saudi Princes are just throwing money around.
I don't disagree. It doesn't always work -- the 2023 New York Mets spent an insane amount of money and didn't even sniff the playoffs -- but it's definitely an annoying disadvantage for the smaller market teams. (Although my take continues to be that they're all billionaires, they should spend the money. There should be a salary FLOOR too)
I went to high school in Keller, and before our football game against Southlake in 03 or 04 they made shirts that said "I would have gone to Keller... but then my dad got a real job!"
I'm so sorry, I am so embarrassed lmao. I always thought it was the absolute grossest shit to brag about how rich your parents are
Ben is right. DAV has really great production quality
It's the frostbite engine, you're seeing Battlefield and all the EA sports games 'wet' textures and shine
And horrible writing
Veilguard is exceptionally let down by its writing. Full disclosure, I think this game is - at best - deeply mediocre. I think the combat is lackluster and poorly put together, particularly with how spongy enemies can be, and how same-y the various classes feel to play. I also think the graphical style really doesn't fit with the type of story this is trying to tell - all the characters tend to have the gormless half-smile on their face the entire time that I personally find really distracting. Having said that, those are me problems, and I can totally see a lot of people enjoying the combat and not being bothered by the visuals.
The writing though . . . it's just bad. It's bad in structure, it's bad in concept, it's bad in delivery. Just bad, bad, bad. For example, there's a point early on where your character settles into their room and you need to set up little tchotchkes from your character's past. Every time you place one, you then get dialogue options where your character ruminates - at length - about what each item means to them. Not only are these descriptions extremely saccharine and overdone, there are no other characters around while you do this. Your character is alone in a room. It's the most bizarre thing I've seen in a long time.
And I won't say this could never work. If this had been held back until you had someone with you, maybe a romance option who expressed curiosity about the items and you had the option of detailing your character's past a bit, then it might have been fine.
Instead you're talking to a literal fish tank.
A video game character who talks to themself? That's unheard of.
@@brucewayne404 You are trying to be sarcastic, but I guarantee you have never heard it like this. Most other instances at least have some gameplay purpose like trying to draw your attention to something important in the environment. If it isn't doing that, then the callout is at least short, maybe one or two lines. Here, it's an entire damn soliloquy. Don't believe me? Here's the dialogue about a chess set, word for word:
"A peddler gave this to me after I saved his caravan from bandits. He told me the nobles think of ruling like a game of chess, that each move determined what mark humanity would leave on the world. We fight everything. We're at war with the gods, oppress the elves, battle the Antaam. If we treat everything like a war-game, the only marks we'll leave are scorch marks."
First of all, who writes like this? It's awful. Second of all, nobody talks like this. And third - you are the only person in the room when you say this. *Who are you talking to?*
Part that kills me is how much repetition there is in the writing. "An Eluvian? That's something Solas uses."
"Ah, an ancient elven mirror that helps you get from place to place. Solas must be using this."
"Then we should go through it to get where Solas is."
"Let's go through the Eluvian, Rook."
So many conversations feel like this.
Sounds like every jrpg to me. I’ll probably be fine
The tone of this game is 100% YA literature. It is much different than other DA games. It's why the Mass Effect lead came out ON LAUNCH DAY and reiterated that the new ME will have a "mature tone."
Monster Hunter Wilds Beta is 2024 GoTY
If SEGA has layoffs or eventually closes its doors, they deserve ten times more scrutiny and hate for it because they are literally sitting on the chao garden as a money printer IP and REFUSE to do anything with it. They could turn it into the most cynical form of live service trash mobile slop and fans would only be pissed because they'd HAVE to play it just to get some more chao garden. Don't know what's going on internally over there but I don't know a modern Sonic fan who isn't disappointed with every entry not including a chao garden. With this Generations remaster giving some more love to chao references than any previous entry SINCE Adventure 2, I'm actually getting my hopes up that Frontiers 2 is going to bring it back. And if it doesn't, like Sarah, I will boycott.
They're saving chao garden for a Sonic Adventure 3 as they've said. Don't expect it if there is ever a Frontiers 2, they verbally stated that the next time there will be a Chao Garden is when they finally make Sonic Adventure 3. I'm glad they're not making a mobile game because as you said it'd have microtransactions etc. It works better as an in game incentive for replayability.
Anyway, it feels like they're building up to an Adventure 3 slowly. Frontiers added a hub world like Adventure 1. They brought back other playable characters in the Frontiers dlc to play around with that. The dlc also had the spin dash. And now Shadow Generations has level design reminiscent of Sonic Adventure games. I don't think the next Sonic game is an Adventure game. But I think the one afterwards or the one after that will be.
Anyway, don't boycott games like Shadow gens. This game is a huge step in the right direction for actual Sonic gameplay design. A Chao Garden isn't everything, and they've already explicitly told you WHEN it will come back (Sonic Adventure 3). Sonic Frontiers was not given the time it needed to be made, and was released a year earlier than the devs were hoping, with a team of like 60 people developing it. Frontiers' success is literally what made SEGA decide to give Sonic Team a budget and developer increase. So we'll see the result of that with the next game (and we got a glimpse of it with Shadow Gens). Which will inevitably lead us to an Adventure 3.
The chao garden is great marketing, and the Adventure title is as well. They want to combine both of them for a blowout success when they finally make Adventure 3.
Not going to Updown for the meetup is a missed opportunity.
Excited for the CharrChax spinoff
The moment-to-moment dialogue and writing in Veilguard was genuinely bad most of the time. So much of the dialogue is like: "Are you OK?" "Yes." "Okay. Let's do this." Just over and over again. Half of the time when you talk to companions it's just "How are you doing?" The story beats are... okay I guess. But it doesn't feel at all like Dragon Age. And wait until the post-credits scene. LOL.
Voice acting is hit or miss. Harding sounds like she's 13 years old, like she aged in reverse. Morrigan is OK but her characterization is a lot different from past games. Taash is incredibly annoying (and that has nothing to do with the non-binary elements; Taash is just a juvenile, obnoxious character who is a big jerk to other characters, which is weird because for the most part Rook *cannot* be a jerk to any of the companions. You hear Taash ripping on other characters and you never get the chance to say STFU).
Combat is fun at first but gets old. The environments LOOK amazing, but the actual level design is bad. Most of the areas don't seem like "real" places... like areas in cities you can only get to with ziplines? It's weird. Hair looks incredible, some of the best I've seen.
Overall I'd give it a 5.5/10.
EDIT: is Haley under the impression that full control of other characters only started in Inquisition? You had full control in every game up until now, which is another big shortcoming of this game. It's too streamlined.
Hoping you cover Mario & Luigi Brothership next week
characters well writing in vialguard? the cope is on maxlevel lol
It feels like they weren't paying attention.
The dialogue is really bad. It's like this game was written for teenagers, honestly.
Fr big skibidi cope like a sussy girlboss
Is there a way to get the opening song as a ringtone?
The dialogue and animations in Veilguard are terrible when compared to Cyberpunk or BG3 - we expect more from Bioware
I could not of disagreed more with the opinions shared about that game. Origin's is a hallmark in story telling. Veilguard killed the series. I'd vote to not consider It cannon to the universe. It's got "New Disney" all over it. Hardest of passes.
This podcast has a lot of “oh I only played 3 hrs but here’s my opinion”, and it just doesn’t work for a 50+ hrs story-driven game. I’m sure all of you are incredibly busy, but if you wanna cover a game, at least show some effort, otherwise don’t even bother…
Especially because Veilguard's combat falls off HARD for many people AND the post-credits scene retcons basically the entire series.
the post credit scene didn't retcon anything lmao. it confirmed a fan theory that has been around for years@@SpookyApparition
Do we get election discussion in this episode?
I hope not. As much as I love MinnMax I can't help but feel turned off when they insert anything political. It isn't the reason we all listen to the show.
@ this is such a millennial take
@@WackoWambo this is such a boomer take
they can't even discuss goty without taking things personally, and you expect them to discuss politics?
Ew why do you want that
Be skeptical of these Dragon Age takes drom a super fan. Watch SkillUp or Mr Matty before buying or u may be very disappointed.
drom? from a super fan of bad writing? 🤔
@@fotografick Lmao everyone complaining about the writing has a terribly written comment.
wait till he reaches the woke shit in the game, then his opinion of vialguard will change fast