Triple Play: Control Resonant

The Triple Click gang FINALLY delivers on a long-overdue threat and does an episode about Control Resonant. They talk about the ups and downs of Remedy's new action game, how long it takes to click with the combat, and how many of the side content shouldn't actually be side content.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Jason Schreier?

  Why would I deceive you? There's no, there's no reason for me to do that. This is the besties. Welcome to Trip of Flight, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Control Resonant, the new game from Remedy Entertainment and a sequel to 2019's Control.

• 0:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:35Jason Schreier?

  Hello.

• 0:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello. Hi, my friends, my good gamer friends.

• 0:39Jason Schreier?

  My gamer friends, welcome back to another episode where we swear that we are telling the truth, because we would never tell a lie.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Why would we deceive you?

• 0:50Jason Schreier?

  We've never lied in our entire lives.

• 0:54Jason Schreier?

  Just as a reminder.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Kirk, you widening your eyes is terrifying.

• 0:58Jason Schreier?

  I'm just gonna smile. I can't really do it.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  No one can do it. No one can do it the way she can.

• 1:03Jason Schreier?

  The social clip needs to be Kirk doing the Elizabeth Holmes.

• 1:06Kirk Hamilton?

  The beatific smile and wide eyes.

• 1:08Jason Schreier?

  Hey, well, guess what? We all saw, you can see everything.

• 1:12Kirk Hamilton?

  We saw everything.

• 1:14Jason Schreier?

  We're gonna talk about it on a bonus episode that you can only get by becoming a subscriber of our show, supporting our show. Go to maximumfun.org/join, triple click, and you can support our show and also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, including one that we are going to record shortly and put out at some point in the next week or two, probably sooner rather than later, right Kirk? Like, maybe at the end of this week or something?

• 1:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we gotta get it out. Yeah.

• 1:41Jason Schreier?

  Where we talk about Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheimer's, You Can See Everything, the documentary that is really taking the world by storm right now. So we're very excited to talk about that. It should be a very fun episode. And you can only listen to it if you support our show. You also get access to a whole lot of other bonus episodes, including our ongoing Sopranos discussion, where we talk about every season of The Sopranos.

• 2:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Nearing the end.

• 2:12Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Very close to the end.

• 2:15Jason Schreier?

  Season six coming up soon. So yeah, and lots more, of course, dozens and dozens of bonus episodes in the backlog for you. So go and check it out. Maximumfun.org/join. Triple click. Kirk, what are we talking about today?

• 2:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Today, at long last, we are talking about Control Resonant, the latest from Remedy Games, the Finnish game development studio responsible for Alan Wake, Max Payne.

• 2:43Jason Schreier?

  No, they're actually still going.

• 2:46Kirk Hamilton?

  They are not finished. It's true. They are finished and not finished. Far from it. In a lot of ways, they're really just getting started with this game, which is a little bit of a passing of the baton, some new talent taking over some duties on this game in ways that are interesting. Yes, we are talking about Control Resonant, which we discussed a little bit on our episode with Lucy James. So it was my triple play and we gave some early impressions. But now I've finished the game. Maddie, you've played a bunch of it. Jason's played a bit and we're gonna talk about it for a whole episode. And I'll say up top, before we get into it, I didn't make this clear, I guess, when I talked about it last time. But I want to just say, we are gonna talk about the events of Control 1. Like, in order to explain the beginning of this game, Control Resonant,

• 3:31Kirk Hamilton?

  we do have to kind of say what happened at the end of Control 1. I saw some people complaining about that in the Discord, and so I just want to throw that out there. If you are still avoiding spoilers on Control 1, that's fine, but be.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Go play it. Go play Control 1.

• 3:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really good. You should go play it.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  First of all, go play Control 1. And then come back and listen to this.

• 3:51Kirk Hamilton?

  I didn't write a big thing for this. As I said, it is made by Remedy, who make kind of action weirdo games, is a third person action game. But unlike almost, I think actually every game they've made, it's not a shooter. This is more of a character action melee fighting game. You play as Dylan Faden, who is the brother of Jessie Faden, the protagonist from Control 1. It picks up right after the end of Control 1, where Jessie has reconnected with the Hedron, which is this extradimensional being that was kind of driving her through the first game, and Stopped the Hiss, who were the primary antagonists of the first game, who are this kind of evil invading extradimensional frequency, which is a very cool idea. This like horrible frequency that takes over your brain

• 4:36Kirk Hamilton?

  and kind of spreads and spreads and spreads uncontrollably. So Jessie has stopped the hiss and rescued her brother Dylan, who is now the protagonist of the sequel. The setting of this game is the Federal Bureau of Control, which is a made up government agency that is in charge of secret goings on, objects of power, altered items that summon beings from other planes of existence. They're kind of the SCP Foundation, mixed with the X-Files. There are this weird bureaucracy located in a building called the Oldest House, which is itself this kind of extra planar place. There's a ton of complex lore that we can get into a little in this episode. It's all very cool. It was very cool when it was introduced in Control.

• 5:21Kirk Hamilton?

  And it's since kind of spread out to just infect the whole Remedyverse, where all these games, Alan Wake, Control, they're all in the same universe. The Federal Bureau of Control exists within Alan Wake. All this stuff kind of ties together. And Control Resonant is like a big kind of pulling together of a lot of that storyline, really, of the like, the culmination of the Federal Bureau of Control's storyline and kind of Dylan and Jessie's story. So in the game, Dylan is kind of released from his prison, where he had been kept by the Federal Bureau of Control. It's been seven years since the events of the first game. And during that entire time, everybody in the building has been locked down. And kind of, they've all been trapped within this building

• 6:05Kirk Hamilton?

  with the hiss to quarantine and control the hiss. But after the seven years, the beginning of the game, there is like a new cascading resonance that's like broken out of the building and begun to like fold the world and duplicate the world all over itself and might like destroy our entire plane of existence. The hiss has escaped in the chaos and is wreaking havoc across Manhattan. Jessie, who is the director of the Bureau, heads off to fix it. But before she leaves, she awakens Dylan and gives him this very powerful weapon called the Aberrant, which is his kind of melee weapon. And then he is kind of drafted by the Federal Bureau of Control to go out into the world and help fight this cascade event

• 6:50Kirk Hamilton?

  that is like possibly going to destroy the world. Everybody in the Bureau kind of hates Dylan, because in the first game, he was like possessed by the hiss and is a very powerful kind of person of power, is what it's called in this universe. But he has like special powers. And as a result, the hiss worked through him and killed a whole bunch of members of the Bureau. So a lot of people don't like him. They don't trust him. They think he is evil, even though he has, you know, he actually isn't. He was just possessed. Then the game is just Dylan going through these different open world zones, doing all kinds of stuff, combat, solving puzzles, playing through really wild side quests as the world gets crazier and crazier and crazier as he sort of figures out what's going on and works with the FPC to try to save the world. And that's pretty much what the game is.

• 7:34Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a nutshell of it by me off the dome. Hopefully, I covered pretty much everything, but I'm sure we'll get into more in this conversation. I gather the two of you have different experiences of and opinions of this game. Maddie, I'll start with you. Maddie, what do you think of this game?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  I love this game. I'm enjoying it so much. And that's kind of a relief to me, because I really wasn't sure what I would think about it, because it's actually pretty different in feel than Control 1, which I also loved. I made a dark horse argument for it on our Triple Click Picks episode recently. It's a favorite of mine. It's kind of like a game where you get to play as Jean Grey and like fly around and shoot rocks at guys.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Just be like this super powered redhead lady who's exploring this mysterious building. But in this game, you're playing as her brother Dylan. And I'll admit, like, as soon as I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, what? I'm not gonna play as Jessie anymore. She's so cool, like that. I had to get over that initial sadness, but. I actually really like Dylan and I really like the combat in this game. I do know that not everybody vibes with it, but for whatever reason, it's just really works for me. I really like the flow and feeling of it. I like swinging my big Grim Reaper tool around. I have the scythe mostly is my favorite form that Dylan's magical weapon

• 9:01Speaker 02

  takes on, but there's a bunch of different forms it can take. You connect combos together, you chain different attacks together, you do aerial attacks, got that kind of like fighting game feel that I really enjoy. All of that is super fun. And I also just like the story of the Control universe. I really like the Federal Bureau of Control as a fixture in the world. And I even like the fact that every character inexplicably has a Finnish accent, even though supposedly this game takes place in New York City. I find it endearing. I know that's something about these games, like the Alan Wake games kind of have the same problem. I guess you could call it a problem, this quirk, let's say. And I find

• 9:46Speaker 02

  it endearing. I think it's, I think it's sweet. It's kind of, it adds to the otherworldliness of the Remedyverse, that this is a world unlike our own.

• 9:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. So like I said, I finished this game. Did I say that? I finished this finished game?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm like 20 hours in. So I'm, I've played a ton of it and I'm really digging it.

• 10:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Took me about 30 hours. There's actually a lot of side stuff I still want to do, but I played a lot of the side stuff too. I'll share my take in a little bit, I guess. But Jason, let's hear from you now. What do you, what do you think of this game?

• 10:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm having a hard time with Control Resonant. I haven't played nearly as much as you two, but I've loaded it up and tried to play it many times and really keep bouncing off of it. I think my struggle with it is really a large part of what you identified when you first saw it, Matty, which is that I loved Control so much and there were so many things I liked about it. And it feels like for, for various reasons, they have swung in the opposite direction with this game. For example, Jesse Faden, I thought was an awesome main character. Dylan Faden, I have absolutely zero attachment to and want nothing to do with after playing as him for a couple hours. One of the things I really,

• 11:03Jason Schreier?

  I wouldn't say loved, but certainly liked about Control is the gunplay and the way that you get this service gun that can do all sorts of different things and feels kind of cool to play around with, especially as Jesse gets more mobility mechanics in that game. In this, I hate the combat. I am really struggling with the combat in this game. It just feels like every enemy has way too much health. It feels like I'm just kind of dying constantly. Maybe I'm just bad at it. I don't know. I picked the daggers and I'm just really not enjoying. It just feels very mashy and I'm trying to do all this aerial stuff, but it's just not working. And I'm just really having a hard time with the combat. Another thing I really liked about Control is that it all takes place within the Bureau, the

• 11:48Jason Schreier?

  building. And the building is shape shifting and weird and has a lot of cool metroidvania aspects to it. And so I was extremely disappointed that this game is an open world, which is just the last thing I want out of one of these types of games is another open world, especially another open world New York to just walk around with weird red stuff in it. I find that the story is incoherent from what I've seen before and not incoherent in kind of the weird Control-ish way, but like incoherent in a way where I just don't understand what's going on or what the characters motivations are, anything like that. And the stuff that I found so endearing about Control 1, like finding all of this paperwork with random censorship on it and hilarious bureaucracy jokes and weird objects that

• 12:33Jason Schreier?

  turn out to be quote, "objects of power" within this Bureau and like, I don't know, microwaves and fridges and staplers and stuff like that. All of that charm that I really enjoyed, I just have not found at all in this game. And I will give it, I'll let you two mostly talk about it because you two have played so much more than I have. And I imagine that things will change later, but I just am having such a hard time sticking with it. And just, yeah, I find myself bouncing off of it, especially the combat. I just am really not like engaged, like I'm really just not, I'm really having a hard time engaging with.

• 13:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay. I have, I think that's helpful, like the things you've run down, because I kind of have thoughts on each of those things, but I'll kind of give my impressions first. I, yeah, I think this game is incredible. So I think this is just like a baller ass video game. This game rules. The final quarter of it is so cool, but really like after a slightly rough start, like it just picks up and gets better and better and better as it goes. And I'm like totally thrilled with it.

• 13:40Jason Schreier?

  Is there, is there a point Kirk, where you feel like it got better for you? Like, is there a specific moment that happened?

• 13:46Kirk Hamilton?

  There is, kind of. Like, yes, there are a few things that I think are like big pivots and I'll mention them in a second, but a few more broad thoughts. Like, I think this game is like a visual masterpiece. Like, I just think it's like a work of visual artistry on a level I very rarely see in video games, down to the art galleries you can go in on the street, which have beautiful art in them, like on the walls, all of which is different and in very different schools. Maybe I can tease that our friend Stephen Totillo told me, he has a story coming about that art and where it came from and which artists were responsible for it. That sounds very cool. So I'll say read game file, his newsletter if you want to hear about that. So like visually, this game is wild. Like it starts

• 14:29Kirk Hamilton?

  out and you're like, okay, it looks like Inception, right? I mean, that's the frame of reference. You walk into Manhattan and here is a city and then on the skyline, like what? Like there's a city going up and then it's coming over. And that seems like, okay, I'm familiar with that visual language. Sure, it's cool to see in a video game, but like it's not exactly new. There are things in this game, so many of them, settings and a lot of setup actually where you're walking into something new, where you're just seeing around you, these visual tapestries, many of which use this like patterned repetition sequences of floating figures, the world like layering and almost going in this fractal

• 15:11Kirk Hamilton?

  pattern out from you, kaleidoscopic visuals that move in this like purely like liquid psychedelic way. These visuals are just like unbelievable. And then the Northlight Engine, which Remedy uses, is like delivering this stuff on a technical level that I, it's just amazing that this studio isn't some massive quadruple A, you know, studio. They're not actually that huge. And yet they're able to deliver something this amazing looking. So that has just like really stuck with me and it's something that develops as the game goes. And I guess that's my final overall thought is this is a game that gets better and better and better and better as it goes. And by the end, it's like fully bloomed out

• 15:50Kirk Hamilton?

  into, you know, a fractal masterwork of its own creation. And it is a game that has rough edges. It does have faults. There are certainly things about it that like don't work that well. I struggled with the combat at first. I also felt like the enemies were really spongy and they actually were even more spongy in the pre-release period when I was playing it. They patched it like right after it came out.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Which was nice that they did that. But, um, so I've played around a little with assist mode at times, though I've found the balance to be okay once it got going. It has other issues as well, but like, man, I think it's really great. I, I loved it. Like, I really loved this game. I thought it was amazing. I think first, let's talk a little bit about how different it is from Control 1, because I think I've seen that feeling expressed and I feel it myself, right? Because Control 1 is so cool. It's so special. Like it was such an amazing feeling, this, this enclosed building that is full of surprises, this wry humor of this brutalist architecture and the, you know, the kind of workaday forums

• 16:54Kirk Hamilton?

  filled out talking about like, well, the toaster oven that like ate my spouse is still here and we're keeping an eye on it, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And Resonant isn't that really at all. There's some really good oldest house stuff, like later in the game, like it does get into all of the lore in some ways that I think are interesting and even ways that tie to Dylan's character. But it isn't that. And I guess, Matty, well, I'm curious for more of your thoughts on that, on like how this game is different from Control and how you feel about that.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's really lacking in the sense of humor that Control 1 had, I would say. And the things about the story that have struck me are the parts that are quite sad, because the premise of the game that you went over is that Dylan, because he succumbed to the hiss and then now has learned to control it. That's kind of what happened prior to this game beginning. During that time that the hiss was controlling his body, he, I guess you could say accidentally or because of the hiss's desires, killed like over 500 people. And he keeps seeing these visions of all these people that he's murdered. And many of the people that he meets now know exactly who he is and they know that he killed

• 18:05Speaker 02

  all of these people and they blame him for the hiss escaping from the oldest house and wreaking havoc on Manhattan and killing many, many, many more thousands of people. And so everywhere he goes, he's wrestling with that. And I think that's kind of a hard thing to be around. And it's like, I've come to really find it fascinating, the writing for this character, especially the way that he bounces off this other character Zoe, who's kind of, she's playing like the man in the chair role, where she's this handler and she hates him. And they have this kind of enemies to frenemies arc over the course

• 18:44Speaker 02

  of the game that I've found really appealing and refreshing in that she has really good reason to dislike him early on. And they're, they don't really have like cool banter. They have like hard acerbic conversations where she's like, I don't actually want to talk to you. And like, that is a really fascinating way to navigate a game, I would say. And it was so different that it was refreshing to me. And ultimately, I appreciated that Dylan as a character.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Is so willing to apologize to people in a way that most of your like classic male video game characters don't when they're a bad guy, like to kind of like hold up like a Kratos, for example, or whoever you might imagine is like a big gruff guy. Like, that's really not Dylan's vibe at all. He's pretty muted as a character instead and is like, I feel terrible. And if anything, I'm, I'm like the only person I know who can control the hiss on any level. So I may as well help all of these people, but I don't expect them to forgive me. And like, I found that really fascinating.

• 19:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. I mean, the dynamic between Dylan and Zoe, well, you'll finish the game. I mean, they, they have a full arc. Their relationship does.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:05Kirk Hamilton?

  And a lot of Zoe's relationship to Dylan involves her learning Dylan's story. And Dylan's story, which is backloaded in the game, like you really start to get into it in the back half in some ways that are so cool. Jason, I trust you're probably not going to finish this game. I hope you will go and look up some spoilers so you can at least see.

• 20:25Jason Schreier?

  Can you, can you address the question I asked earlier? Where like, was there a point where it started? I'm curious for both of you.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  That's a good question, yeah.

• 20:31Jason Schreier?

  Was there a point where it started to click for you, like that you would say?

• 20:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'm going to address that, but I want to stay on what Matty was saying. Like, yes, there is a point and we're going to get into it with the gameplay because there are like a couple of missions you can do. But I don't want to get sidetracked from what Matty was saying about Dylan.

• 20:44Jason Schreier?

  Okay.

• 20:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Because I want to stay on that for just a second. Because Dylan's story is actually integral to the story of this game and in what makes it work as a sequel, in my opinion. Because Dylan's story is in a lot of ways, the story of the oldest house. Because he lived there his whole life. If you remember Control 1, Jesse came to the oldest house looking for Dylan. She was trying to find her long lost brother. They discovered this object of power when they were little kids. And it was this slide projector that opened each slide like led you to a different dimension. And the slide projector is like, at the heart of the hiss invasion. It's at the heart of like, all of this stuff. It's this incredibly powerful object because it opens dimensional doors. But Jesse was an outsider. And it

• 21:26Kirk Hamilton?

  was like, really weird. She came into this building and the minute she walked in, it was like, there's this janitor who seems like he knows me. And suddenly I'm the director and I have been given like, the object of the gun, the object of power that like makes me the director.

• 21:39Jason Schreier?

  What was his name? Ati? Ati is-

• 21:41Speaker 02

  He's such a great character.

• 21:43Jason Schreier?

  So good.

• 21:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Recurring character in all these games.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:45Jason Schreier?

  Uh huh.

• 21:45Kirk Hamilton?

  And so like, she was, but she was an outsider and we were in the position of outsiders. And so then as we played through the game, what was so fun about Control 1 was, it was leveraging that position. Like, it would just show us these redacted documents that like implied, oh, there's a refrigerator and it kills people and we really need to be careful about it. Oh, there's this whole department that's overcome with mold and the mold is really sentient and maybe dangerous. And like, a lot of the humor and also just the like, beguiling mystery of it all, was that it was all unexplained and they could just tease at a million mysteries, a world of mysteries of hidden objects and other dimensions, that like, maybe there's something to it. And what Control Resonant is doing

• 22:27Kirk Hamilton?

  is the opposite of that. It's like, okay, now, there is a crisis. A massive, like, global thing is happening and now you are inside of the madness. Like, you're through the looking glass, or however you want to describe it. Like, you're fully inside a world that is like, broken and split on top of itself with this like, crazy resonance cascade that's happening. And then the whole game is kind of that way. It's like, you can't just do that again. You can't do Control 1 again, where you're an outsider and there's all these mysteries. Like, if they keep just showing us mysteries, it would have felt kind of frustrating after a while. Like, okay, this is cool, but there's just kind of more objects of power that are kind of these fun little teased things. So what they've done is, I think, something much bolder, is say, we're going to just blow the whole

• 23:11Kirk Hamilton?

  thing out. And then in telling Dylan's story, I think they have also like, opted to tell the story of the oldest house. And when you learn Dylan's story, and when Zoe learns Dylan's story, it's like a very important thing. And you'll see this, Matty. And like I was saying, Jason, people who finish the game will know what I'm talking about. There are like, moments in the story that are so cool and unexpected, where they're delivering Dylan's story in these incredibly cool ways, that I just hope even people who aren't going to play the game, like, will go find them. Just because it's so neat what Remedy is doing.

• 23:41Jason Schreier?

  So when you'd say Dylan's story, you're talking about the events that happened before this game, when he was, before, before he was trapped, like, in that kind of state of unconsciousness? Like, but he was living in the oldest house?

• 23:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Correct. And like, his relationship with Dr. Darling and with Trench, the former director, and all of this. Like, it's, the stuff is like, all fleshed out. And we actually learn a lot of it from the point of view of someone who was taken as a child and kept in the oldest house, and like, trained to be this, you know, whatever they wanted him to be, this person of power, this savior, whatever. And like, his story, he's a very sympathetic character and deeply traumatized and really interesting in the end. And then Zoe is a great foil for him. So, that's what I'll say, generally without spoilers there. But I think that like, all of this stuff kind of feeds into what makes this game work as a sequel. Let's talk a little bit about the gameplay and the world design, because I do want to answer your question, Jason. Like, what is the thing that really kicks this game into gear? And I would say that like, if this game were designed a little

• 24:38Kirk Hamilton?

  differently, if it was a game that held your hand more and kind of told you where to go, they would, they would push you toward the faults, the Jesse sightings and the faults, more directly than they do. Because those are the things that I think, Matty, I see you nodding, those are the things that really begin to open the game up, first and foremost. And they're what I would recommend any new player do first, is like, go find Jesse and do the faults. Matty, can you tell us what the faults are? Because I've been talking for a long time.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I, I think I remember even saying that to Jason early on, because I was like, the relationship between Jesse and Dylan is the other thing about the game that I think is really fascinating. So there's like,

• 25:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Indeed.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  This capacity for Dylan to enter into these other, I mean, they're kind of extra-dimensional platforming sequences, if you will.

• 25:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Other dimensions, yeah.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like, through exploring them, he'll end up having or meeting Jesse there on like, the astral plane, essentially, where she's projected herself and is, is trapped there, seemingly. And often will be telling him, like, get out of here. And like, you are learning the mystery of where Jesse is now. And like, that compelled me to continue the game as well, was just, I also found the platforming to be really fun in this game. And I think that might also just be a core difference, Jason. And we can talk about the combat, too. But like, I think the fact that I enjoy the combat-

• 25:59Jason Schreier?

  Well, I haven't done any real platforming.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Okay, fair enough.

• 26:02Kirk Hamilton?

  But something important about these segments is that they give you new platforming abilities.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:06Kirk Hamilton?

  And they turn the platforming into the incredibly cool thing that I'm describing.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  And they also, I would argue, make the game a Metroidvania again. That is the other, like, if I was trying to convince you to keep playing it, Jason, which I'm truly not, but if I were to, I would tell you that the open world isn't really that big. It's not as big as it seems, for starters. And secondarily, you're going to continue to get new traversal abilities that are really fun to use and that continue to like, unlock new parts of the world in the way that any classical Metroidvania would do. You'll see things around the world where you're like, oh, I don't really understand what that weird kind of watery orb is in the air. What are those? Those are kind of everywhere. And then eventually you're like, oh, it's a, it's a thing that I can eventually use to traverse the environment.

• 26:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a grapple point. I think it's okay for us to describe these traversals.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like, of course, you might guess it's a grapple point, but also, this is a control game. So you might also just be like, that's just some weird thing that's happening. And who knows? And eventually you're like, okay, these are traversal abilities. And that, that plus the kind of continued storylines with Jesse are another thing that just are a driving force for the game. Because you're rewarded by gameplay unlocking and more parts of the world unlocking, but also you're learning more about where Jesse is and how you can find her.

• 27:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And I want to be a little more specific even than that. The first ability, likely, that you will unlock, is the ability to shift gravity.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Right, that's true.

• 27:31Kirk Hamilton?

  And go up onto the wall and onto the ceiling. And that is the central design idea, and I would say, like, artistic idea of this game. And it's so essential to what makes it so cool, that before you have that ability, it's not really the game yet. Like, the later levels of this game-

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. Once you can walk on walls, the game does get a lot more sick.

• 27:52Kirk Hamilton?

  I love Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush 2. Those are two games that I've really enjoyed. And these are games that involve shifting the center of gravity around your character and falling in different directions. They're very complicated. They have their flaws, but they're very cool. And it's been so rare to see somebody borrowing ideas from them. And this game is borrowing from Gravity Rush, in addition to some other games that have done this kind of thing. But man, I mean, there are levels in this game where you're in a like, patterned environment, inside of an apartment building, that's split out in infinite different directions, where there are like, repeated and varied copies of rooms stacked left, right, top and bottom. You're chasing enemies around and jumping

• 28:33Kirk Hamilton?

  up. The camera swings as you press the left button and all of gravity shifts until you're on the left wall. Then you're fighting. And then there's enemies on the ceiling above you. They're like, shooting at you. You're jumping. The whole room sw- spins 180 degrees as you land on the floor. There are boss fights in rooms where like, enemies are on the wall, the ceiling and the floor in front of you, and a boss is in the back. You're having to jump and dodge your way through shifting gravity around in 360 degrees. Like, the game completely defies gravity at a certain point. And the later areas in the open world, which go far beyond the initial ones that you see, are some of the coolest looking and most amazing, like, explorable areas I've seen in a game that I can-

• 29:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Think of where it's just so amazing looking because of that art I was mentioning earlier. And then the design of it is like shifting and rotating and spinning as gravity turns. And it's like, it's like nothing I've seen before. It's so freaking cool. And it all ties back to that first ability that you get when you go to the first Jesse Fault. And it's a critique of this game, I guess, that the game doesn't just tell you to go get that.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't even, I think it's like labeled as a side quest or something too. Like, I don't even know if it's a main.

• 29:45Kirk Hamilton?

  You could play 10 hours and fight resonance and do all this stuff with like no other traversal abilities. And you probably would be like, man, I don't know. Like, this is okay, but it's a little repetitive. You could also get bogged down and there's like Ubisoft style, like repeating events in the world where you're just like defect, like protect the box with the guys so that you can get some materials from it. Or, you know, just like finding collectibles and stuff. But there are so many side quests that are like authored and really, really cool. There's a whole mold area called the park that, first off, I think is actually very funny. I found that this game has quite a, it has quite a lot of the humor, I think, from the original game.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  That area actually is quite funny because there's an ongoing thing where like it's mold and like the first time Dylan encounters it, it seems and smells like mold and every character that he runs into, but especially Zoe is like, don't eat the mold. Don't eat it, whatever you do. And Dylan keeps being like, I'm not gonna eat the mold. Like, that's not a thing I would do. And it's just like this long, slow burn until eventually Dylan is like, the mold is low key smelling really good right now.

• 30:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe I should eat the mold. There's like signs everywhere that say, do not ingest the mold. His first conversation with Zoe is so funny. She says, Dylan, whatever you do, don't eat the mold. And you get to choose your responses in all the dialogue. And you're like, why would, I'm not gonna eat the mold. Don't worry, Zoe. And she says, good, keep telling yourself that. And you're like, what?

• 31:08Speaker 02

  And then like eventually when you start arguing with her or you start being like, what if the mold smelled like butter and jam? And she's like, Dylan?

• 31:16Kirk Hamilton?

  You're like, Zoe, I'm gonna eat the mold. So there's, the mold is funny.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  That whole sequence is very funny.

• 31:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Great. And there are side, there's some side quests and there's a side quest involving twins that you're trying to rescue because a lot of the side quests involve like survivors of this disaster. They've evacuated a lot of Manhattan, but there are still some people who got left behind. There's this side quest involving twins that's so cool. Did you do that one, Maddie? The twins side quest?

• 31:40Speaker 02

  I didn't. I mean, but I, I've done so many other side quest, like the whole lost taxi like thing I'm in the middle of.

• 31:46Kirk Hamilton?

  The taxi is so cool.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Is so cool.

• 31:48Kirk Hamilton?

  There are these scripted side quests that are these little remedy, just fun little narrative experiences where you warp to some other dimension and a weird thing is happening. There are a lot of puzzles you have to solve and these really interesting, creative, you know, like, like hidden secrets that you're discovering. Like, it really is like, there's so much of that stuff in the game. And I think like, it's to the game's detriment that there's so much combat and that you can just kind of fall into like, oh, okay, so this is like an infamous game. I'm basically just fighting these enemies over and over. When, once you play through the whole thing, it's like, oh, man, no, this is like so many original and awesome ideas. This is going so many different directions. It's like delighting me in so many different ways. And that is true to this ethos the game has, which is that it does not hold your hand

• 32:32Kirk Hamilton?

  to the extent of a lot of its contemporaries. It does indicate where things are supposed to go. There are times where you're in a room and there's a light pointing at what you're supposed to do, you know? It does some of that, but way less of it than your average game. Like, there is not going to be an NPC telling you like, oh, you need to do this or that to solve the puzzle. Like, you'll just kind of stand there and like, look at, you know, look at a wall and a couple of switches and just be like, what am I missing? How do I figure this out?

• 32:58Speaker 02

  And then just like, go read a letter again that's like lying nearby and be like, I guess this is it. And this is my only clue. And eventually you kind of look at it and you're like, okay, I'll, I'll try this and it might work. And that's, that's rewarding.

• 33:10Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's cool. Like, I really like that about the game. Like, I like how it just trusts me. It's just that, as a result of that, it is possible to spend a lot of time not getting the first cool traversal abilities. And like, I mean, there's a whole world of people, you know, of like YouTube videos now being like, here's five things I wish I knew going into this game. People should totally watch this because there's a lot of like, obfuscated stuff in this game that needs to be explained. The way that the like aberrant level works, I didn't realize for the longest time that you have to like, there's like a lot of forms for the weapon. You mentioned the scythe. There's like a bunch of different ones that you can unlock. Unlocking those just makes you more powerful, even if you're not using them, which I didn't realize yet, like just makes your level go up.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't explain that. It, a lot of the abilities are really under explained.

• 33:58Kirk Hamilton?

  I, yeah. I, I think my way, I think I would critique it as there's too much stuff in the menus. Like, there's too many upgrade materials and it's all a little overwhelming. And so I at least kind of just started ignoring it and was like, well, I'm sure I'll learn it if I need to. And then that meant that I did kind of miss these major systems, like the fact that the aberrant level is tied to how many upgrades you've unlocked regardless of whether they're equipped, which is like an important thing to know because it makes you more powerfully, much more powerful with cheap, like late in the game, I just spent a ton of cheap resources to become much more powerful, not realizing that I had been sort of sleeping on that.

• 34:35Jason Schreier?

  Did you two lower the enemy health or enemy damage or like change? It doesn't seem like there's difficulty settings, just kind of specific sliders you can play around with. Did you guys do that? Cause if I were to go back into the game and give it another chance, which I mean, maybe I will, I think I would just lower that because that is the thing that is really making me struggle the most is just how annoying the enemies are.

• 35:02Kirk Hamilton?

  I think it wouldn't hurt the game at all.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  I think it would be fine.

• 35:04Kirk Hamilton?

  You totally could do that. It would be totally fine.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna recommend to you, Jason. And so the accessibility menu, which I also played around with a little bit just to see what it, what it did and what was on offer. It does have, it has those sliders that you're describing, like kind of the Mina the Holler style where it's like, okay, it's almost overwhelming how many things you can change. But there is a thing at the top that's somewhat obfuscated where you can choose like three different, like, I don't know what they're called, but they're kind of like personas where it's like different modes of play that just create a version of the game and they have.

• 35:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Difficulty presets.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are difficulty presets essentially, but they're not the same as like easy, normal hard. They're like, here's one where like, all the enemies are gonna be really weak, but so will you. I made that up, but like, you know what I mean? And like each, you can kind of read each of the three and be like, this sounds like what I want. And I tried those and I, I thought they were fun. I, I ended up going back to how it was because I was having a good time, but I just, I wanted to see what was there and play around with it. And like, like Kirk said, early on, the game was really hard anyway. And so I was like, let me just like, see if this is more fun for me. I got used to it after a while, but I was gonna bring this up too. So this kind of happened to me when I was playing Wolverine, like the opposite thing

• 36:21Speaker 02

  happened to me, Insomniac's Wolverine game, where I never liked the melee combat in that game. And we kind of talked about it on the episode where Lucy James guested, but like, I see melee combat as so subjective, like to a point where I'm astounded by the designers who created it because it must be so, so difficult to deal with the fact that everybody has a different quote unquote feel for like, how fast should the punch connect? Does it actually feel correct? I don't know why Wolverine never felt that good to me. And the more it went on, the more I was just like, this is simply not vibing with me. And like, for some reason, Control Resonant is on the other end of the spectrum for me.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  But because I had that experience with Wolverine so recently, I feel like I'm like spiritually connected to you, Jason, because I'm just like, yeah, sometimes you play, especially a melee combat game and it just, you just never feel like it's correct. Like, it just never feels good.

• 37:19Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm not ready to get on board with that. I think that Wolverine has significant problems. It does not develop its melee system nearly well enough. It has a lot of pacing and rhythm problems.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  But there were people who loved it.

• 37:29Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm sure there are, but I don't actually think that this is just a subjective thing. Like, I think Control's combat is miles beyond Wolverine. It is so much better designed and Wolverine is like, has fundamental core problems.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Okay, maybe it's an unfair comparison.

• 37:43Jason Schreier?

  Can I, well, hold on. I mean, my, my problem with the combat is not the way it feels. My problem with the combat is that it feels button mashy because all the enemies have a ton of health and are killing me immediately and I'm just not enjoying playing it.

• 37:57Kirk Hamilton?

  With Control, it definitely have come to like the combat more and more the more I've played. Then I went and watched some YouTube videos of people talking about different builds and how they're approaching combat. And I came to like it even more. It's kind of crazy that Remedy, on their first outing, remember, making a game like this, which isn't even just like, I don't know, a kind of straightforward brawler. This is like a full on DMC aerial combat, like really complex and varied builds with, I don't know, three main melee attacks, three secondary melee attacks, something like six or seven combo finishers, all of which have like tie in with your upgrades and also like a whole summon like system where there's like two different kinds of summons.

• 38:41Kirk Hamilton?

  There, it's a really complicated and like very technical melee combat system. And the more I put into it, the more I get out of it. And it's actually like amazing how well it works. I think the feel is part of it. Like, it is something that can be better or worse, in my opinion, anyway. Obviously, it's all a little bit subjective, but like, the way they've built the mobility, the way that Dylan can leap and slide, the range and stickiness of enemies when you begin to attack someone, and the interruptability of his attacks in particular, where he can, you can do a dodge like at any point in your attack animations. It's so fluid. The invincibility frames given from a dodge are like crazy long, where you're just like fully face dodging through attacks. And like, once you kind of get that, your head around all of that and work out a few

• 39:26Kirk Hamilton?

  combos and unlock a little bit of the tree to give you like the final combo attack and stuff, it becomes, I think, really fun, even fighting the basic enemies. And then also you start doing more damage and so the sponginess of the enemies becomes less of an issue. But there's definitely like, both a learning curve and the game has to kind of get, you have to unlock a little bit more to get to where it's really fun. But I do think that it is really fun. And now with everything unlocked, like, I mean, it's, it's the kind of thing that like over time, I think people will increasingly come to appreciate just how good this combat system is. Cause I feel like I'm only scratching the surface and I really like it and have uncovered and like played around with a lot of different builds.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like for me, one of the turning points was like getting past that first boss fight and feeling like I understood the combat at that point, as opposed to like the traversal mechanic that Kirk mentioned. Like, I thought that was really cool. But for me, the thing I was enjoying was the rhythm of the combat and doing aerial stuff and jumping around and the dodge feels so good in this game that like, you're juping around like Hollow Knight or whatever. I don't know. It feels really fun and exciting. So for me, I just was like, great, this doesn't feel bad. And I. I don't have that feeling that I do sometimes where I like come across a group of enemies and I'm like, great, more guys. But that's because I'm having fun fighting the guys.

• 40:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. I think, and to kind of pose your, a version of your earlier question, Jason, with the combat, there was a thing that kind of unlocked it for me, and that was unlocking my first combo finisher. Like, once I had enough upgrade materials to get a combo finisher. Because at that point, you've gotten, so that I, we basically described this, but you have kind of two attacks, a primary and a secondary attack that can look very different. Like, little knives for your primary and a big drill for your secondary. I mostly went with this, like, kind of hatchet scythe, like, not the big swinging scythe, but kind of an axe, I guess, which is in the middle for my main attack, and the big hammer, because just hammers are fun for my secondary. But like, when I started, I actually started switching up more and more later in the game, and then was like, oh, these are all awesome. And like, I can actually really customize my

• 41:31Kirk Hamilton?

  build for like, different scenarios, or just for fun. And then you get a combo finisher, which is like, a mega attack. Like, for me, for a lot of the game, was just this huge sword swing. And, side note, it's really cool how in this game, the aberrant Dylan's weapon becomes all of these things we're describing, and then they just fall off on the ground. Like, so he's just leaving like, chunks of these huge axes and like, scythes lying all around him everywhere. I just think that's like, another cool little detail in this game.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I mean, Manhattan's already destroyed. Who cares?

• 42:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. It's just kind of chunks of Dylan's weapon everywhere. It's like Spider-Man's webs, kind of, I guess. Anyhow, the combo finisher is like, a big moment. And that was when I was like, oh, okay, so, three attacks, and then womp, like, I smoke them with this huge sword that does a ton of damage. And then I started figuring out, oh, my dodge attack always launches them into the air. So like, now I'm like, aerial all the time. Oh, I just unlocked an ability that gives me a bonus if I'm in the air. Oh, I got another ability that gives me a bonus if I'm behind them. So I knock them into the air, dodge behind them, jump up, and then suddenly I'm doing like, crazy damage on every enemy. So like, it's very technical. You have to actually look at your build and like, pay attention to all of that stuff. But then, once you do-

• 42:41Speaker 02

  And like, read the little descriptions, basically.

• 42:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Man, it's like, I really think, it's like, crazy. I love the combat system. And it won't vibe with everybody, but I think it's really impressive that Remedy's designers have pulled this off, given that the studio has this long history of making shooters.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. But I, I also just, can we talk about the music for a second? I, there's so many other things that I also really enjoy.

• 43:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, when you're, when you say music, so there's Petri Alanco's score, and then there's also, of course, some songs. I mean, talk about either one, I guess.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's Zoe's mixtape, because she has this taste in music that kind of scans between like, punk and electro-pop, I suppose. And she, once she and Dylan are kind of in their frenemies phase, before their eventual friends phase, she kind of starts being like, well, you were in a coma for seven years, so I guess I'm gonna play some music for you. And those sequences will match a song that obviously has been selected by the game's developers, but is selected by Zoe, quote unquote, and it will like, go with something that's happening in the game. And it, that's just, I'm just a sucker for that. Like, the lyrics are about the thing you're doing, and it's like, an awesome song that's playing. There's like, one moment in Control 1 that does that, and people talk about it all the

• 43:57Speaker 02

  time, because it's like, the coolest thing ever. And I won't go into detail, because again, you should just play Control 1, even if you listen to this whole episode. Just go ahead and play it. But this game does that type of thing several times, where you're going through something, and a song is playing, and it's part of what you're experiencing, and it's amazing.

• 44:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Agree. It's so cool. They, they did get that genie in the bottle again, or whatever, recapture the lightning in a bottle. What's the expression? Whatever. They, they pulled it off again.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  The cats in the bag? I don't know.

• 44:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Multiple times. And yeah, there's one that I think we're both thinking of, Matty, that I would not, never want to spoil, but it's-

• 44:35Speaker 02

  There's a big hole.

• 44:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And then, there is a musical sequence that is so freaking, I was like, I love this, like, the entire time playing it, just like, yelling to the heavens about how cool it was.

• 44:45Jason Schreier?

  Like, the Astray Amaze.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's like, this game's version of that, I think. But I haven't been in the game, so Kirk maybe knows there's more sequences, even after that.

• 44:55Kirk Hamilton?

  There are some great needle drops. And I would have to say, Petri Alanco did a great job with the score. Overall, I really dig the music and the sound design. I think, like, so Martin Stig Anderson, who is an amazing composer and sound designer, he actually was, he was one of the composers on Karen earlier this year, but he did the sound for Limbo, for Playdead. He was like, the visionary sound designer of those games, where like, the sound is so amazing. He's a really incredible composer and sound designer. And he worked on the first game along with Petri Alanco. Now, Petri Alanco is going solo. I think it's kind of interesting that that's happened across a few different disciplines with this game. And as we wrap up, like, something to note here that I just think is cool to

• 45:35Kirk Hamilton?

  see. So Mikhail Kassurinen, who was the director of the first Control, and is the director of this game, did not write the first Control. Sam Lake, obviously the famous visionary at Remedy, and writer, and you know, creator, and such a powerful creative force there, he wrote the first Control, Sam Lake did. But Kassurinen wrote Control 2, along with Ashley Smith. So Sam Lake actually, I'm sure, you know, consulted and was maybe in some way involved in this game, but this is not a Sam Lake game, kind of for the first time. And it does have its own energy, but I think it's really cool to see this studio sort of letting people take a little bit more creative rein, and like, finding other voices, and letting it come out. Same thing with the music, where like, Martin Stig Anderson

• 46:20Kirk Hamilton?

  is like, really knows what he's doing, like, he's a very established voice. But Petri Alanco is a great composer, and like, now he's kind of gone on his own to, you know, to make the music for this game, and he did a great job. So I think that's like, a cool thing behind the scenes with this game, is that this feels like, it's not Remedy 2.0, it's certainly a lot of the same people that worked on the first game, and that have worked at the studio for a long time. And they, I have to, I mean, the amount of expertise that would be required to put something like this together on a technical and design level is just absurd. But it's so cool to see this studio, like, hanging together, but also evolving, and like, they're not content to do the same thing over and over again. And I'm like, floored by that, by the boldness here, where Control 2 could have just been,

• 47:03Kirk Hamilton?

  oh, there's a new wing in the oldest house, it's Jessie's time to, oh, the gun got weak again, so she needs to like, get new gun powers, and like, go and explore. And would you look at that? There were a bunch more funny memos to read in this building, and we're still in the oldest house. Like, you can imagine a version of that that would have been plenty pleasing, but maybe in the end would have felt a little like, ah, are we just treading water, you know? What are they doing here? And instead, they're like, no, we're gonna have new people write it, we're gonna totally blow it out, we're gonna make a completely different kind of game on every, like, possible level, and still, in my opinion at least, deliver. Like, deliver the goods, the like, Remedy feeling, this surreal, incredible adventure, in a way that they never have before. And I think that is like, very, very cool to see from a studio, especially a studio that I love as much as

• 47:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I love Remedy. So I, I really am wild about this game. I think it's just so, so freaking cool. And they should all be very proud of the very cool thing that they made. Matty, any final thoughts on, on Control Resonant?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  No, I really agree. I, I think it's really special, and it's not at all what I expected. And I think that's really neat. You know, why not? Why not have it be something super different? And I'm sure if they make another Control, it'll be absolutely nothing like either of these games. And that's fascinating.

• 48:17Kirk Hamilton?

  And I, I'll say without spoilers, that yeah, I mean, they are obviously, there will probably be another one of these.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  That's exciting to me.

• 48:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm so excited.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  I'm excited to hear that.

• 48:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Just based on where Resonant ends. You'll see, we'll talk about it when you finish it. It is very exciting what they're setting up for the future of this series. All right. Well, that is Control Resonant. Let's take a break and come back for one more thing.

• 48:42Speaker 03

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• 48:55Speaker 04

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• 49:01Speaker 04

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• 49:52Speaker 06

  Hey, Max Fun listeners, it's me, Jackie Kation. I have a podcast with Lori Kilmartin. Say hi, Lori.

• 49:57Speaker 07

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• 50:02Speaker 06

  We have a podcast, and it's about stand-up comedy, and how much we love it, and how much we dislike some of it. So listen to that podcast. It's called The Jackie and Lori Show.

• 50:11Speaker 07

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• 50:37Kirk Hamilton?

  And we are back for one more thing. Well, that was a lot of Control resident. But Jason, what's your one more thing?

• 50:43Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is a game called Final Fantasy Resonance.

• 50:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Just the one?

• 50:48Jason Schreier?

  With, uh, with-

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Just one.

• 50:51Jason Schreier?

  N C E ending, not the N T ending. This is a game that is way up my alley. I absolutely love it. So this is a game I've been playing on my Steam Deck every night before bed for like the last four weeks or so. Um, so what is this game? This is a game made by Square Enix, obviously. It's Final Fantasy. And it is an HD 2D game, so it's made by that department at Square, Team Asano that they're called. Um, and it is a traditional turn-based JRPG based on the story and characters of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, which was a mobile gotcha game that, uh, that Square Enix came out with like, I don't know, 10 years ago, a long time ago, and has since

• 51:36Jason Schreier?

  shut down. And they decided to take Brave Exvius and, uh, kind of turn it into a traditional console game, which means that there's no gotcha, there are no loop boxes, there's no manipulative microtransactions in this game. Um, and what they did was they fleshed it out in a lot of different ways. They did new, pretty much everything. The graphics are completely new and they're gorgeous. Um, the, the gameplay feels very new. The combat system has some similarities, but is, is mostly new. Um, everything about it is new. And it tells this kind of original story about these characters and you go around the world and you get different methods of travel and you solve different problems in

• 52:17Jason Schreier?

  different kingdoms in the world. It's got all this kind of classic JRPG fare. Um, but uh, it has a couple of interesting twists. One is that in combat, you can summon what the game calls visions, which are these spirits, a lot of which are from old Final Fantasy games. So, uh, one of your characters, your main character, Rain, might have, um, I don't know, lightning from Final Fantasy 13, or like Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, standing behind him in battle, and that'll be his vision. And essentially what those visions are, is it's almost like the job system of this game. Each of them have different abilities and you can improve them and you can master them. And once you've mastered them, you

• 53:01Jason Schreier?

  can equip another vision and like bring over the skills from your previous vision along the way. And there's a ton of different permutations that you can play around with, um, different, uh, tactical abilities and strategies. And in combat, a large part of it is figuring out your enemy's weaknesses and then using those against them to like stagger them so you can do more damage to them. Um, but also you can buff them and debuff them. So there's a healthy amount of strategy that this all plays into. The game is also full of references to old Final Fantasy games. It is very much nostalgia bait meant for the, the person who grew up playing these Super Nintendo Final Fantasy games and wants a whole bunch of references to them. For example, there's a whole side quest that is set on a phantom

• 53:44Jason Schreier?

  train, um, just like Final Fantasy VI.

• 53:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Do you suplex the train?

• 53:49Jason Schreier?

  Stuff like that. You cannot sup- you don't fight the train, but you do ride the train briefly. Um, so it's very much like nostalgia bait for Final Fantasy fans, but it also has a lot of strengths in its own right. The music is really good and it's all original. Combat system is really cool and it's just a lot of fun to play. It's got great vibes. It looks incredible. It's got a lot of cool areas to explore. You get an airship. You get to ride around. You get to explore all these different little side quests and, and caves and stuff. It's got a good sense of humor, which is something that I think has been lacking from, um, certainly from Final Fantasy 16, some, some recent Final Fantasy games, not so much the VII trilogy, but, um, at, at a certain point, Final Fantasy, uh, started taking itself a little bit seriously, uh, in a way that

• 54:32Jason Schreier?

  I think did a disservice to it. Um, got a good sense of humor. Uh, yeah, it's got a lot going for it. I really am enjoying playing through it. I'm not quite finished, but I'm pretty far into it. Um, and I like pretty much everything about it. I would say on the Team Asano scale, it's like not quite as transcendent and as the Octopath Traveler 2, which I still think is the best game Square has made in, in, in a long time. Um, but it's really good and I highly recommend it to people who are into Final Fantasy or turn-based JRPGs, especially if you, uh, grew up playing the Super Nintendo games or you have some sort of fondness in your heart for those games. It like, it imagines a different

• 55:14Jason Schreier?

  world almost where there's a parallel track of like 2D Final Fantasy games and 3D Final Fantasy games, which I imagine could be the case. If this game is a hit, I imagine they will make more just like it. Um, because it has the story of what I believe is season one of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the mobile game. And there are other seasons too, that I imagine they will add through sequels or DLC or whatever. But it works pretty well. Um, and, uh, this is the second time I believe that Square has taken one of their mobile games, uh, and turned it into like a proper console game. And I think it works pretty well for them, especially because they've just like thrown a lot at it. They've done

• 55:58Jason Schreier?

  a lot to it. Um, so I'm really enjoying it and I recommend it. It is out, uh, I believe the day this episode comes out, it comes out. So, uh, yeah, we're checking out. Also runs incredibly well, consistent 60 frames a second on the Steam Deck.

• 56:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Yeah, I was gonna, I was assuming you played it on the deck. It seems like it would be a fantastic Steam Deck game.

• 56:16Jason Schreier?

  Oh yeah. It's a great, uh, lying in bed, maybe watching TV with my wife or putting on football, just playing it. Although you do want to crank the music because the music rules in this game.

• 56:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's-

• 56:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Awesome. Yeah, that sounds, uh, that sounds like fun.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Jason Core for sure.

• 56:31Kirk Hamilton?

  If only there weren't seven million video games out right now.

• 56:35Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, you can see what my priorities are.

• 56:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, absolutely.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  I think they're in the right place. I honestly, I'm like glad you had something to play that wasn't Control resident because you needed something, you know? If, if this wasn't hitting.

• 56:48Jason Schreier?

  There's actually, other than Echo Weaver, which maybe we'll talk about a little bit more down the road, once you two have a chance to play it, a lot of the games that came out this fall aren't great for the Steam Deck. So it was nice having this one-

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

• 57:00Jason Schreier?

  -to like lie in bed and, and play with or like play on the train to the city or something like that. It was nice having, having this one.

• 57:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm still bummed that Zero Company doesn't run that well or on Steam Deck. I've played it a little streaming and it's so, it's such a good handheld game, but I think obviously like it's probably hard to get it running on the deck, but it would have been a great Steam Deck game. So that's really too bad. Uh, well, Matty, what is your one more thing?

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Uh, mine is a TV show that you, Kirk, talked about on this show previously. It's called Lanterns and I just wanted to reiterate that, uh, we really loved it and, um-

• 57:34Kirk Hamilton?

  You finished it?

• 57:35Speaker 02

  I wanted to, we finished it and, uh, Dina especially really loved it. And I wanted to relay some of what she had to say about it that I thought was interesting, that I've kind of seen like other people talking about online, but I don't know, uh, that anybody's really put it in an essay. And if, if my wife were an essayist, maybe this is what she'd be writing about. But, uh, this show, so this show is about, it's a superhero show, but it's also, uh, this show starring Aaron Pierre as this character who is dealing with this immense pressure from his family. And he has this experience that my wife was relating kind of metaphorically to like this kind of black American experience that

• 58:15Speaker 02

  a lot of people have and her version of the metaphor. Uh, so basically John is growing up in this world where there are these space cops called Green Lanterns and aliens come down and give somebody on earth a special ring and then they get superpowers. And, uh, John's father was offered this ring, but part of the test is whether or not you describe yourself as fearless. And John's father is a black man, and this is decades ago, although he certainly could be fearful in the present day, but decades ago, he definitely wasn't fearless and failed the test. And this, this white guy passes the test. And that is like

• 58:56Speaker 02

  a really big part of the show and what it's saying. And so John's parents, uh, his mother specifically gets another visit from the aliens who are like, hey, we didn't actually understand about institutional racism and like how it worked on your planet. Like, we didn't know that that was a thing here. So we feel kind of bad about this and like, maybe we made a mistake with the ring delivery system that we invented. And we think that your son has potential, uh, but you're gonna have to make sure he can pass later. Anyway, bye. And so John grows up in this like pretty abusive environment and by my estimation and Dina's estimation. And you don't really understand like really why his parents are

• 59:38Speaker 02

  treating him like this at first, because the scenes are kind of shown, uh, in such a way that you're like, okay, like I guess he has to be the Green Lantern and they're teaching him to be fearless, but like at what cost? And he has this like tough relationship with his brothers and all these other pressures put on him. And I think that I, I've definitely like seen kind of like my, my black mutuals on social media and my friends, uh, talking about this quality of like it being really similar to a family who can only afford to send one kid to college or like one kid to like, you know, the special school or have whatever opportunity. And like the other kids end up really competing or feeling like

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  some type of way about the one kid that gets that opportunity. And like that kid who gets it is then feeling like all of these complicated feelings about the pressures that they're under. And I think Lanterns portrays that in a really fascinating way through this superhero story that I wasn't expecting. And it ended up having a lot of really interesting conversations with my wife about it after we watched each of these episodes and like what it was trying to say. And I also think Aaron Pierre is just freaking dynamite in this role. And if you haven't watched him in Rebel Ridge, which we talked about-

• 1:00:57Jason Schreier?

  You should.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  -when it came out. He's so good in that. And like, he just has such movie star quality and seeing him get to play a role like this is really cool. So yeah, I recommend it. I think Lanterns is a really fascinating show with something to say that doesn't really have anything to do with like aliens or superheroes and is instead like this other kind of metaphorical story about a really specific part of the black experience that some people watching probably could really relate to. And I thought was really interesting.

• 1:01:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, the Seven Brothers is really interesting. They call him Chosen.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Dina was like cracking up so much at them calling him Chosen all the time and like, just, I don't know. It was very funny to her.

• 1:01:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, a lot of like subtle layers depicted in their relationship and that what you're talking about, that sort of inequality between them was really interesting.

• 1:01:41Jason Schreier?

  Sounds like it's very much in conversation with Watchmen from Lineloff also.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  It is. And Dina hasn't actually seen Watchmen yet because I watched it without her the first time around. And I was like, we gotta circle back and watch that now because I actually think she'll really like it.

• 1:01:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I maybe want to re-watch Watchmen. Who re-watches The Watchmen?

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we are gonna re-watch The Watchmen.

• 1:01:58Jason Schreier?

  It's funny, man, a little bit of a side note, I suppose, but it's funny that Damon Lineloff, Lost was criticized so much for its depiction of black men in particular.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:11Jason Schreier?

  It's funny. It feels like he's responding to that in some ways by making these two shows that I like very much about.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  It feels like he like went to school and in some form and like really tried to-

• 1:02:20Kirk Hamilton?

  And like, and hired some Cor Jefferson and some really good black writers too, I think is a big part of it. Like, he understands how to build a writer's room.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  I mean, Cor Jefferson's episode of Watchmen is like just one of the greatest episodes of TV ever.

• 1:02:33Jason Schreier?

  Is he on Lanterns also?

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  I don't know that he is, but I would love if he were. But no, I think he just, he worked on Watchmen and it's fantastic.

• 1:02:39Kirk Hamilton?

  But some good writers on that show for sure.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Maddie, did you watch The Underground Railroad? Aaron Peir was in that too.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. That's another excellent show with a really different vibe.

• 1:02:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I really want to watch it.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  It has a lot of kind of magical realism elements combined with historical fiction that make it like really blown out and like trippy. Not a bad thing, but it's like, it's it's not just a show about the Underground Railroad. You know what I mean?

• 1:03:03Kirk Hamilton?

  No, for sure.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  It's like really unusual and fascinating and more kind of surreal.

• 1:03:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I was looking up Aaron Peir on IMDb just to try to remember kind of where he had been before Rebel Ridge and then saw that credit and it reminded me, oh yeah, I really wanted to watch that and hadn't, but it makes me kind of want to go watch it.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. It's weird and cool.

• 1:03:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Well, yeah, Lanterns, really cool, really cool show. Totally agree. And that's, that's cool to hear Dina's perspective on it. All right. Well, I'll go last. My one more thing is Star Wars: Galactic Racer, a game about racing a little crocodile guy named Biddy Blast, who is the most popular character on the entire internet right now. And who could have seen that coming?

• 1:03:44Jason Schreier?

  I don't know about that. Elizabeth Holmes is up there.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  But is she a character, Jason?

• 1:03:49Kirk Hamilton?

  There must be memes combining them now. There has to be a scene where it's like, it's like cut to Elizabeth Holmes, "Would I deceive you?" Cut to Biddy Blast, "Scrib doo!" Cut to Elizabeth Holmes, "Surely this exists. This has to exist on the internet." And I feel almost certain that it does. But anyhow, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, what a game. Holy shit. Didn't see this one coming. This is like the most fun I've had with a racing game since I can remember and one of the most fun games I've played this fall, just in terms of pure adrenaline and joy per second. This is a game made by Fuse Games, a UK developer built out of, I think headed up by a lot of people from Criterion who used

• 1:04:33Kirk Hamilton?

  to work on the Burnout and then the Forza Horizon series. So, and there's a lot of burnout DNA in this game. This is a racing game set in the Star Wars universe where you play as a character named Shade, who is a very kind of sketched out character, but he, he gets involved in racing in the kind of post Return of the Jedi period. So like the Empire has fallen. This is like kind of right around, right around at that time. The Empire has fallen, but like there's kind of a big void and no one's really sure what's going to happen. I thought this was going to be a pod racing game. Like I could, this, I like ignored this game completely.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  I guess I don't know what it is.

• 1:05:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Like I saw the trailers for it and stuff and I was like, whatever. Wasn't there already a pod racing game? Like who cares?

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  That's like really beloved. It's like kind of a cult favorite, as I recall.

• 1:05:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. I have learned that since that it's actually a great racing game that a lot of people really love, but I didn't play it. And like, I just assumed, oh, this will be like prequel-y, you know, racing against Subulba or whatever. You do race against Subulba in this game, but it's, he's an old Subulba and it's much later. But you're not actually pod racing. And I think that's kind of an interesting lore backdrop to this, which is that like, I'd forgotten this, but the pod race, the whole thing with pod racing in The Phantom Menace is that like humans can't even do it. Do you remember this? Like, it was all these aliens doing it because like it's so insanely fast and dangerous that like, human beings are too slow, except that Anakin could do it because he was so strong with the Force. Right. And that was kind of the explanation.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Forgot all of that, but sure.

• 1:06:03Kirk Hamilton?

  You can't, like, there couldn't be a pod racing video game because pod racing is too fast. Though I think you do race some pod racers later in this game and it's like super insane when you do it. But basically like in the fiction of this game, the racing circuit kind of died out and like pod racing went away and now they're trying to bring it back. And so people are racing like speeder bikes, like from Return of the Jedi, or you race kind of like a floating car, like a hover car. And then there's this cool thing called a knife's edge that I just finally unlocked. That's like the dopest car, I think. Like it does these like, you're going super fast and then you hit the like drift button and you cut up on your side and like go like corner super hard. But basically it's like, it's a sci-fi racing game, you know, like, like F-Zero. I think there's a lot of F-Zero

• 1:06:46Kirk Hamilton?

  in this game. Or like Mega Race, which was actually a game I played a lot of in the 90s. And some people listening to this will be like, Mega Race mentioned, and will be very happy about that. But I, there's kind of like, I don't know, I'm not like a racing game expert by any stretch. It's actually like surprising to me how much I love this game. I'll explain why. That's actually for some real design reasons. But it's surprising to me because like, I always start a Forza game and I'm like, cool. And I start it. I'm like, wow, the world is really cool. The cars are really cool. And I start going and then I'm kind of like, all right, I don't know. I don't have time and I don't, I don't feel motivated or really care. And part of that, I think, is that I like the sci-fi racers more. Like I like it when you're getting crazy vehicles that fly and have like super

• 1:07:29Kirk Hamilton?

  afterburners and can like do insane stuff. Like I just find that more fun. It's a little more like Mario Kart. Like it's more of an arcade feel and just the sci-fi aspect is fun. And that might go back to playing Mega Race when I was like 13 and falling in love with that game. Who knows? But that's part of it. But another part of it is that this game builds stakes into its design in a way that I think is ingenious. And I've never seen in a racing game, but like I said, I'm no expert. I haven't played that many racing games. But there is a rogue-like built into this game. This game follows a rogue-like structure. And that one idea works so beautifully that, that you're like, that it like makes the whole thing work for me and makes it so exciting. So the narrative of this game,

• 1:08:13Kirk Hamilton?

  right? This guy Shade gets and starts racing in this new circuit. And there's this big jerk. His name is Bull. His last name is Bull. He just sucks. He's like a rich jerk who like, his parents are really rich and he wants to like buy this league and he's also a racer in the league. And it's basically like a sports story where like the big jock, rich asshole, like wants to buy the, the team and buy the, you know, or the gym or whatever. And then you're like, scrappy guy is going to beat him in the final showdown and stop him from doing it.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  You're the Mighty Ducks or whatever.

• 1:08:44Kirk Hamilton?

  And I should mention, a thing I did not know when I started this game is that Chris Remo, who's actually a friend of mine, former Idol Thumbs podcaster, worked on Firewatch and like some games back in the day, now living in England, he and Duncan Fife, who also like wrote, has written for a lot of different outlets and they're kind of in that same circle. They're the two lead writers on this game, which is super interesting. So they like wrote the dialogue and the barks along with some other writers, but that was their role. So that was something that was just cool to discover and has since sort of colored my experience of the, the story. So I, I like have to mention it only because I'm like, the whole time I'm playing it, I'm like, man, I can't believe Remo like helped write Biddy Blast. Like what the hell? That's so funny. So I just think, and I think it's

• 1:09:29Kirk Hamilton?

  just very cool that they worked on this because I think the story is really cool. But like I was saying, the rogue-like structure, that's the secret sauce. Like that's the idea this game had that I would be shocked if we didn't see replicated in racing games from here on out. The way it works is you get like a ticket. It's like a tournament ticket at the start and then you get put on a kind of side, like a, a like branching path, like in, I don't know, Slay the Spire, I guess, does this, like where you kind of choose like each node. Like sometimes you can do a higher risk node or a lower risk node and you're kind of working your way toward a boss, just like in Hades or whatever. Like, and as you go, you're like doing races and if you win the race, you get points and you can use that to buy more upgrades. But most of what you're upgrading throughout this, this

• 1:10:13Kirk Hamilton?

  run is just your racer, which one way or another, you're going to lose at the end of the run. Like if you crash out and have to start over, you lose the, the vehicle that you built and you have to start all over again. Now, when you crash out, you start over and you don't die or anything. You just do another run and then gradually you're unlocking another kind of upgrade where you can make your vehicle permanently better. So you're getting better and faster with each run, which helps you get further each time. So there's this kind of rogue-like quality where each run is unique. And once you're like five or six races in, you crash a couple of times and you're down to your last crash. And it's like, if I crash this third time, I have to start all the way over. Or you get up to the boss race, the first one is against Subulba, like they bring him

• 1:10:57Kirk Hamilton?

  out and he's like totally whipping your ass. And I'm like, I can't lose to this guy. I'm going to have to start over. And there's this feeling of like excitement and stakes as a result of this, that is one of the things that was really missing for me from a Forza Horizon, where in the Forza games, there's this very player friendly thing where you can press the Y button and just rewind. So like you're driving and then you crash and go off a cliff, you can just rewind to before you crashed and then just keep going. And that's really nice in one sense because it lets you just kind of keep going. Like it keeps the movement going, but there's no friction. There's no stakes. There's no tension. You're not like, oh my God, like I cannot crash. Like I'm going to go full digital mode here and just like absolutely beat this guy. And then when you're in the final stretch

• 1:11:42Kirk Hamilton?

  and you're like cranking your afterburners and you're in the red and you're about to blow up and you win and like get to keep going, like the, the exhilaration of that is out of this world. Like it's just so exciting. I, I enjoyed, the YouTuber Dunky made a video- About this game, and it's mostly just him joking around and playing it. But like, a little ways into the video, he's on the second race or something, and he's like racing, and he finishes, and he's like, "Wow, they're going really hard for like, the second race." Or he like, says something along those lines. And I just thought it was, it's so perfectly articulated, the way this game feels, where you just start playing and you're ins- I was like, instantly, just over the top, like, excited and stressed and thrilled and like, having such a good time.

• 1:12:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, the game feel, the way the ships feel, the like, the way you have to kind of like, punch in all your buttons, like, if you catch on fire, there's like, quick time events to kind of bang it and put it out, which is all very Star Wars, you know, all the technology sucks and you have to like, hit everything with a wrench to make it work. The sound effects, the way when you hit your kind of, extra overdrive, your ramjet, it's called, like, it's so tactile and thrilling and cool. I can't say enough about this game, like, it's so fun, it's so, man, it has a lot, there's so much I haven't seen, it's like, very layered, there's so much strategy and depth to it. There's a whole online mode, you can like, play through one of those rogue-like runs with a whole host of other people. Man, it's like a tour de force, it's so much fun.

• 1:13:09Kirk Hamilton?

  I really was not expecting to show up on TripleClick and be like, you know, falling out of my chair, ranting about how cool Star Wars Galactic Racer is, but it's so much fun, I like, play it, I'm gonna keep playing after this, I play it every night, just do a run or do a few races, just because, it's just like, that much fun, it's that great of a game, so, a real triumph.

• 1:13:31Jason Schreier?

  Can you play it on Steam Deck?

• 1:13:32Kirk Hamilton?

  You can, it does not run, I don't think, at 60 frames per second, but it is playable, it's verified, and I know some people do, and I think it would be fine, like, it'd be fun to play on Deck. And man, I really recommend you both try it out, like, I-

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  It sounds really fun.

• 1:13:47Kirk Hamilton?

  You'll be having fun within like, five minutes.

• 1:13:49Jason Schreier?

  I'm just so, I played it at Summer Games Fest, and just, racing games are just like, so uninteresting, to me, unfortunately.

• 1:13:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing, but if it's at all your thing, and if you like races and racing games, and then if you like Star Wars too, it really very much may be your thing, so, anyone out there listening to this-

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  I mean, I like Chris Remo's sense of humor, so that could win me over, he's very funny.

• 1:14:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's, it is a funny game, and it has bitty blasts, you know, I mean, what more could you want? Uh, yeah, quite a game, Star Wars Galactic Racer, definitely worth checking out, and that's another episode of TripleClick, folks.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  Did it again.

• 1:14:28Kirk Hamilton?

  We sure did.

• 1:14:29Jason Schreier?

  Put on our afterburners and made it to the finish line.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did.

• 1:14:32Kirk Hamilton?

  We did, we're putting, we're making it slowly toward the finish line of this fall, though there's kind of one major final boss.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a big boss at the end, that we have to fight, I guess.

• 1:14:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, Escape Academy 2.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:14:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Exactly, Escape Academy 2.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  That's what we're all gearing up for, every guides writer is preparing.

• 1:14:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Honestly, a game I'm incredibly excited for, so, uh, that-

• 1:14:52Speaker 02

  Actually, yeah.

• 1:14:53Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not GTA 6, but, um-

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 1:14:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I love the first one of those, so I am excited to get into the sequel of that. But yeah, there's still more, still more fall in video games to come on TripleClick, but for now, I think we can call it, this was a lot of fun. Jason, Maddie, I'll see you both next week.

• 1:15:09Jason Schreier?

  See you next time. Well, actually, we might be back sooner than that, with a bonus, right?

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  In the bonus feed.

• 1:15:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh yeah, see you sooner than that, for You Can See Everything.

• 1:15:17Jason Schreier?

  Make sure you subscribe.

• 1:15:18Kirk Hamilton?

  With a regular feed, I will see you next week.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:15:23Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show, and also wrote our theme music, our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration, you can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. TripleClick is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Email us at [email protected], and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening, see you next time.

• 1:16:21Speaker 05

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• 1:16:24Speaker 02

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• 1:16:25Speaker 05

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  By you.