Summer Game Fest, Switch 2 Impressions

Maddy and Jason are home from Summer Game Fest, where they played a bunch of upcoming games. Kirk watched some cool announcements. And everyone's got Switch 2s, so there's much to discuss.

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Just how many games can we bring to you in a given week? Let's see how far we can stretch it. This was a big week after all. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you supersized edition, because this week we're talking about all the games we saw revealed at Summer Game Fest, and last but certainly not least, each of our experiences with the new Switch 2.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:31Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:34Jason Schreier?

  Hello, my friends.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello, hello.

• 0:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Welcome home from Los Angeles.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Home sweet home.

• 0:39Jason Schreier?

  Oh, thank you. It's good to be back. It's good to be back in old New York.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Or Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.

• 0:47Jason Schreier?

  I have my 20th year high school reunion Thursday night.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  It's upsetting.

• 0:55Jason Schreier?

  Which is wild. I have to give a speech.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  You do?

• 0:57Jason Schreier?

  What should I talk about? Yeah, they asked me to say a few words. I think I'm just gonna talk about the Switch 2.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Wait, why? I mean, is it just sort of games journalism themed? Like, why'd they come to you?

• 1:09Jason Schreier?

  Yes, my high school reunion is games journalism themed.

• 1:13Kirk Hamilton?

  I would imagine that Jason is a prominent graduate of his high school class.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  That's cool, that's cool.

• 1:17Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, they just wanted me to give a speech. I don't know. I was like, I think they thought I would be good at just making fun of my classmates and all teachers.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Oh, it's a roast.

• 1:27Jason Schreier?

  Could be.

• 1:28Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, I just watched my niece give an eighth grade speech, and she totally crushed it. I could send you her speech, and you could just give the same speech.

• 1:35Jason Schreier?

  That is a good idea.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Or you could just get some coaching from her on like, how to give a speech to other kind of classmates that you had.

• 1:42Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm sure she would give feedback.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Because she was really good at it.

• 1:44Jason Schreier?

  What was the theme of her speech?

• 1:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It was about when she first came to the school when she was a kindergartner, and then how now she's an eighth grader, and she's been there this whole time, and how her relationship to the space has changed, and now she sees it as an older kid. So I think it would be totally applicable to a 20th.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  I actually think that is applicable, yeah.

• 2:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Interesting. High school reunion.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really, you could really go for that.

• 2:04Jason Schreier?

  And here, I thought I would just be burning all of my former classmates in a series of well-timed insults. But okay, we could go either way.

• 2:12Kirk Hamilton?

  You could go with that, too.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  If you're enjoying all of these additional parasocial details about our personal lives, then you might want just a little bit more of them. And how could you get them? How could you get more Triple Click per capita? Well... You're missing out if you aren't subscribed to our bonus episodes. And we, we say it every week, this week is no different. It's maximumfun.org/join. That would be how you would support our wonderful ad-free show. We're part of Max Fun. We love them. We own our show. Max Fun's worker-owned. All good things gives me the warm fuzzies every single week when we record this. And it should give you the warm fuzzies too. And it can when you get bonus episodes from us.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Sometimes it's just us talking about our personal lives. We do have some episodes like that in the bonus feed. Although I believe the most recent bonus feed episode is a Blueprints Beans Cast. That's us spilling the beans on all things Blueprints. But we've also got one coming up about Andor Season 2, which we've watched and which we are going to thoroughly spoil and get way into, go full Star Wars on it. So lots and lots of fun bonus ups in there. There's video game stuff. There's personal life stuff. There's non-video game stuff like Andor. Pretty much whatever we want. So definitely go to maximumfun.org/join, become a member and support us.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  And also, why not, if you are in Portland, Oregon, round about July 11th, maybe you live there or if you happen to be there. This is how I go about promoting our live shows, you know, if you just happen to be there then. Then I think you could come to TripleClick Live and you'd have a great time if you did that. We are doing a live show at the Alberta Rose Theater. Doors at 7, show at 8. But also, even if it's not just like a you happen to be there and you're listening to the app on the exact right day, you could actually get a ticket ahead of time and I would recommend doing so. There's a link in the show notes. That way we know you're coming and also you've got your ticket secured. So please come to that. That'll be really fun. We're gonna play some songs too.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Cause we moonlight as a rock band, the three of us, you see? So definitely don't miss that. And with that, let's get into the real meat of the show. Jason, what are we talking about today?

• 4:32Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, man, there's a lot of gaming news over the last week. We're not going to go through every single announcement one by one, but there's a big PlayStation State of Play. There was a Summer Games Fest Keeley keynote, and then there was an Xbox showcase. And then, at the same time, Maddie and I spent a whole bunch of time in Los Angeles where we played some games and talked to some developers. And we're about a mile away from all the big protests as that was happening. So that was a little surreal.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  Saw some smoke, heard some sirens.

• 5:04Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, saw some helicopters, bigger police presence on the Play Days, SGF Play Days, Summer Games Fest Play Days campus. But we don't get into all of that. We will get into some games because that's what we're here to talk about. Unless Maddie, did you have any thoughts on like what the craziness that was going on? Because it didn't, I didn't really feel it, other than just kind of like reading the news obsessively.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I read the news a lot while I was there. I didn't head over there, but I know some of our peers did and came back and showed us pictures. I mean, it was really right there, which made it kind of an interesting show compared to previous years, but.

• 5:37Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, the one thought I had was that like it's surreal seeing the president talk about how Los Angeles is like a shit show while being in Los Angeles. And it's like totally fine.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  It's fine. It's just people trying to live their lives and perhaps the president should let them.

• 5:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, as someone who was in Portland in 2020, it was incredibly familiar. That was the same feeling when we were here. And I was hearing from older family members asking me if everything is okay, because we hear it's anarchy in Portland. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I walked my dog, man. There's some protests downtown. Like it's, most things are totally fine. So yeah, that is a.

• 6:12Jason Schreier?

  That's a good point. Yeah, my mom was texting me frantically too.

• 6:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Very frustrating thing to see.

• 6:17Jason Schreier?

  Okay, so let's talk about some games. So let's start with the announcement talk. And then Maddie and I can both talk about some of the cool things we saw and played and talked about while we were there. So for you guys, I'm going to throw it to you guys in a second. I want to talk about a couple of my highlights over the course of the week and the shows that that were aired. And then I'm curious to hear what you guys thought was the coolest. We don't have to, again, we're not going to talk about every single announcement, but I'm curious as to what's. Stood out to you guys, whether in a good or a bad way, we could talk about what's most noteworthy. So a couple of highlights for me, first and foremost, on Thursday, the State of Play Final Fantasy Tactics finally got announced. Sorry, that was Wednesday, last Wednesday. Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster finally got announced

• 7:00Jason Schreier?

  after being leaked four years ago and being kind of on and off in development over the last few years. I am so excited for this, you guys. This is one of the greatest games of all time, now coming back on modern platforms. It's gonna be cool.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Are you really excited? I feel like I saw some people saying they wanted more out of this remaster because it was so long awaited. But maybe you don't feel that way and you're like, no, it's good enough for me. A plain old remaster. That's exactly what I want.

• 7:23Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's what I expected. That's what I knew it was going to be. I've talked about this in the Discord a few times. There's these two kind of coupled rumors, the Final Fantasy Tactics and the Final Fantasy IX. And Tactics was always going to be this remaster visual overhaul, whereas IX was going to be more of a full-fledged remake. I think I described it a couple of years ago as like not quite a super turbo remake on Kirk's taxonomy of the remakes. But also a little bit more than a remaster. So somewhere kind of in between, not quite FF7 style three-part extravaganza. But also more than just a remaster. And to answer your question, Matty, no, I didn't expect more.

• 8:03Jason Schreier?

  Two, second thing is that it doesn't need more. It's a perfect game as it is. It could use like maybe a couple of new character classes and maybe some gameplay rebalancing, but like it really didn't need many changes. And the third thing is that a little bit of behind the scenes insight is that this is actually made by the unit within Square Enix called Creative Studio 3 or Creative Business Studio 3, whatever they're called these days.

• 8:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yeah, right.

• 8:29Jason Schreier?

  And those are the people, yeah, right? For real. Division one, division two, division.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  I know.

• 8:36Jason Schreier?

  Blizzard, Blizzard had Team One, Team Two, Team Three. It's so funny. Anyway.

• 8:43Jason Schreier?

  And they are the people who make Final Fantasy XIV and also made Final Fantasy XVI. So I believe one of the reasons it's taken so long is because. This project was just kind of on and off development over the years as that team had to work on these much bigger, much, much more important, much more imminent projects. And so it wasn't just that they were like secretly working on this thing for four years. It's that it just stopped and start and restarted development over the course of that.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Well, I'm gonna play it.

• 9:13Jason Schreier?

  But Tactics, just to kind of, in case people aren't familiar with it, is a grid-based strategy game. It's not quite like Fire Emblem and it's not quite like XCOM, but it's definitely shares DNA with both of those games. The way it works is you build a party of five. You can have a bigger army, but you can only take five into a battle with you at once. And you customize them however you want. You give them, you can train them in different character classes, which are based on typical Final Fantasy character classes like knights and archers and wizards. And then you can do some mix and matching of abilities. So you can train them up to learn abilities from one class and bring that over to another class. And you can customize your characters in all sorts of fun ways.

• 9:55Jason Schreier?

  And then you combine that, which is super addictive, kind of grid-based strategy combat with this incredible epic sprawling, like Game of Thrones-y story about religion and poverty and class inequality and a lot of themes that I think are still very much applicable today. And yeah, that's going to be a very cool game for us to jump into, to talk about. Kirk and I have both played it. Maddie will be playing for the first time.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  I'm excited. Yeah. It's kind of Fire Emblem-y based on your description.

• 10:25Jason Schreier?

  There's a little bit of Fire Emblem in there.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Which I mean is a compliment, of course. I like Three Houses had a lot of that, like fun themes on top of a cool strategy game. I really liked that, so I think I'll like this.

• 10:35Jason Schreier?

  Yep, yep.

• 10:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I appreciated the statement that accompanied the announcement of Tactics as well from the director about how in this time of inequity and tyranny, we Once again, these themes are relevant. I just thought it was kind of nice to see someone just sort of saying something very straightforwardly like that.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I dug it. I dug it.

• 10:52Jason Schreier?

  Matsuno is a real one. And there are a couple of other just kind of like little announcements that had me excited. There was one game called Blighted, which is the next game from Drinkbox Studios, the company behind Guacamole and Nobody Saves the World. And that game looks and also plays super cool. I'm very excited about that one. There are a couple of others here and there, but yeah, what do you guys? Matty, did you see anything in the announcements that got you excited?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. A couple of things I didn't get to just play, but I'm still nonetheless excited for because we're still in that section. Marvel Tocon is an Arcsys fighting game that's going to come out and it looks really, really cool. I will probably struggle to be amazing at it, but I think I'm going to have a good time trying. This is like a four V four tag fighter system. So like, you're going to have to select four characters with which to try to be good at, which even just saying that, I'm like, oh my goodness, it's going to be so complicated. I'm thinking about how meticulously I designed my MVC three teams, which were three player in and of themselves. Like you'd have to kind of think about like, okay, these three characters are each going to perform

• 12:00Speaker 00

  a different role on my team. Add in another one, that's already going to be wild. I don't think I've ever played a fighting game like that. I'm sure they exist, but four is a lot in my mind. But anyway, the art looks freaking incredible. Really, really dig the style of it. Think it's just going to be cool. Obviously I enjoy Marvel Comics. That's no secret. So I'm going to dig probably that part as well, but I just also thought the fighting game itself looked neat.

• 12:24Jason Schreier?

  Does this mean, Matty, that Marvel versus Capcom is dead now that they're doing this?

• 12:28Speaker 00

  I do kind of feel that way. Like there was a piece of me watching this where I was like, this might just be the franchise that

• 12:35Kirk Hamilton?

  It does seem sort of like they can't code this.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  We go ahead and jump Bob. I also saw some jokes from people online where they were like, get this, what if we added Capcom characters into this game? Like people are definitely like playing into it and being like, here's a crazy idea. What if Capcom was involved in some way? Like there's definitely a lot of

• 12:51Jason Schreier?

  What if Phoenix Wright was here?

• 12:52Speaker 00

  A lot of online bits about that, which is totally just I mean, that MVC is really in a weird place right now. I don't know if it's gonna recover or not. I don't have any inside information about that. I'm just a fan of that series, so I'm sad about what's happened to it, which means I'm interested in Marvel Tokon and kind of curious about what it's gonna be like. It looks fun. And also, I didn't get to play this game, although I saw more of it, which is Resident Evil Requiem. Obviously, we all knew this was in the works, but it was fun to have it confirmed. They did kind of a bait and switch thing as part of the stream where like the developer came out and said they weren't gonna announce RE9 yet, and then later in the stream, as the one more thing announced it, fine, sure, I'll take the bit.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  It looks cool. It's been a while since there was an RE game that had like a little diminutive Final Girl type as the main character, and like, that's the only person you can play as. There's not like the option to play somebody else. And so I think that's

• 13:50Jason Schreier?

  Well, hold on, we don't know that.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  I guess that's right. I actually don't know that, but I'm assuming, I'm assuming it's her.

• 13:56Jason Schreier?

  Don't assume that.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Fine, I won't.

• 13:58Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't think, I mean, they're not officially saying, yeah, but the rumors are that there's Liana's in there.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  I guess that's true, although in the presentation that you and I saw, Jason, they did highlight the fact that she's not combat trained, and that was like kind of a different thing for the game. Like, usually, at least, the characters in Resident Evil are like police officers, or they're military in some way. They, they know how to use a rifle. This is a character who, at the very least, even if she's not the only one who's playable in the game, she's really hardscrabble. Like, she's gonna have to figure it out, and that does feel like kind of a different and more classically Final Girl situation for an RE game. And I thought that was kind of cool and interesting.

• 14:40Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I got to play it, actually, so I can talk a little bit about Yeah, I want to hear more about it. What it's like. Yeah, so I played this, I played this relatively short demo, and it's just, it feels like the most Resident Evil thing possible. So you're like, you're creating, you, you, shit starts off with her, Grace is her name, Grace Ashford. She, I believe, is the daughter of a previous Resident Evil character.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, Alyssa's her mom, yeah, from I think the game's called Outbreak. I mean, there's a ton of Resident Evils.

• 15:08Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, there's a lot of lore up in there, but she starts off like on this gurney strapped to this gurney upside down and she like maneuvers her way into getting off of it. So for all of her kind of helpless nature, she's clearly a badass. Yeah, she's clear. She clearly knows what she's doing. And then you play as her in first person, which by the way, you can switch to third person at any time. You can toggle between first and third person, which is wild. You play as her in first person in the demo and you creep through, you skulk through this hallway and you are seeing there's a lot of spooky things around you. A lot of kind of, it seems like you're in this medical facility. So there's like staff charts that you can look at and like photos and kind of patient records.

• 15:49Jason Schreier?

  And you find this key that's like cherub themed and use it to open a door that is cherub themed.

• 15:58Jason Schreier?

  And you go in there and you find a fuse box that needs a fuse.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  A fuse box.

• 16:03Jason Schreier?

  And then as you're looking for the fuse, you get chased around, you run into this massive like Mr. Exile. Yeah, monster with, that like eats corpses and is chasing you.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  I did get to see her. So here's what I'll say about this big monster. It's kind of like they looked at Lady Dimitresk and the response to her and how hot she was as a Resident Evil monster. And they were like, what if we made a big tall lady, but she was the least hot, tall lady you could possibly fathom. So she has this like disgusting toothy maw and like one big eyeball and small eyeball.

• 16:38Jason Schreier?

  There's still gonna be some people out there.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  She's got a big dinosaur claw. Like, I know, the step on me mommy memes are incoming for that fricking dinosaur claw. No, she looks horrifying. Like, they really were like, we don't want you to be into the monster. We want to make her really upsetting looking.

• 16:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Funny because they took the actress who played Lady Dimitresk and made her essentially their spokesperson for the entire presentation.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  I know. I just thought it was kind of a funny parallel because much like Lady Dimitresk, this monster will like kind of like hunch over when she's walking through human sized doorways. And like kind of come after you and seem larger than life almost because everything is normal, human shaped. But like she's kind of navigating this area and is bigger than all of it.

• 17:18Jason Schreier?

  So you get chased by the monster. You have to like loop around and knock her out a little bit and then get back in there. And then you move this kind of wheeled cart to provide a stepping stone. So you can jump up and get the fuse from a briefcase in which that you like turn around with your hands. So you can find the lock and unlock it. And then it's all very Resident Evil once again. And then you use the fuse and I think you use a screwdriver to open the fuse box to get the fuse and then bring it over to the other place. And eventually you turn the power on.

• 17:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I like that you're giving us the play by play.

• 17:49Jason Schreier?

  Well, it's just, this is, I mean, I'm describing it to make you to paint the picture that this is like 100% Resident Evil. And then the last thing you see in the demo is like, you slide under this gate, just as it's closing to get away from the monster. And you wind up in this big room that kind of resembles like the foyer in the mansion in Resident Evil 2, which is one we all played last year. It just again feels like a little hub for that area. So yeah, I'll feel very Resident Evil. There are rumors floating around about like whether Leon is playable character, whether it's like linear or open world. And this presentation, this demo did not like touch upon any of that stuff. It was really just a very like, short Resident Evil style thing that had just about

• 18:31Jason Schreier?

  that. But yeah, I'm sure you play as someone else, whether it's Leon or not.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  That is a classic.

• 18:36Jason Schreier?

  Because they need the kind of the combat sections. This is very much the puzzly sections. And I'm sure there are also going to be the combat sections.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  And if she can't use a gun, maybe that would be kind of tough. Like, maybe eventually you need to use one.

• 18:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, exactly. Unless she suddenly is, or actually, maybe we get a five year time skip in which she learns how to be a

• 18:52Speaker 00

  She learns, she goes to the shooting range.

• 18:54Jason Schreier?

  A police officer. Kirk, did you see anything that stood out to you over the course of the last week or so?

• 18:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there was plenty of stuff that was announced that looked neat. I thought, what is it called? There are no ghosts at the Grand.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:06Kirk Hamilton?

  It looked neat. This was at the Microsoft press conference. So it's like a musical slash narrative slash who knows what exploration kind of a game that, you know, it was a little light on details on how it actually works and really high on high concept, which, you know, can sometimes be a red flag or can indicate a game that is cooler in theory and in trailers than it Is to actually play, but it had a killer vibe and just looked really neat. So that was one game that I will at least have my eye on. It was nice to see a sequel to Planet of Lana. That was my one more thing a little while ago. A kind of overlooked, underappreciated Limbo-like game is how I would describe it.

• 19:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Side scroller with sort of discreet puzzles on each page with a hostile environment and monsters that chase you. But it's all very puzzly in that kind of set piece puzzle way that Limbo and Inside do. And I just liked that game and it'd be cool to see another. I thought the trailer or teaser or whatever you want to call it for Persona 4 remake was really funny because it was so short. I guess they just didn't have much time, but that looks cool. What else? Outer Worlds 2, you two maybe saw more of that than I did.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I played a little.

• 20:18Kirk Hamilton?

  But I'd love to hear a little more about it because I'm excited about it.

• 20:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I played it. It's really cool from what I saw. I don't know. It's hard to get a real gauge of an RPG from just like a 30 minute demo.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  20 minutes. Yeah, yeah.

• 20:28Jason Schreier?

  But I thought it looked really cool. It felt good. Guns felt good. I should have played the first one like before coming to SGF, just as a reference point.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, same. I also felt that way.

• 20:41Jason Schreier?

  I was trying to remember what I didn't like about the first one, which I kind of bounced off. But what I played of Outer Worlds 2 was really cool. Basically, the demo is set inside this one kind of dungeon area. And there are a few different paths you can take. You can either, you can find this NPC who can kind of like guide you into like beating the boss without having to fight him. Or you can like either miss that NPC entirely or like not even bother with that. And so it was very much like this RPG section where you can just like pick a bunch of different ways to get past it. In true Fallout style, kind of in pre Fallout 4 Fallout style.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's also really good gun feel in this game and I got to talk to the developers a little bit after I played it. And they talked a lot about specifically wanting to improve that and include a lot more comedy weapons this time around. And the one I had in the demo that I really liked is just shoots lightning at people is very satisfying. Like the animations were really funny. There's like a very slapstick comedy kind of a. Violent game like doesn't really, it feels like play violence and having lightning is really fun in that environment, but they told me there's like a better version of the shrink ray from the first game where now you can shrink people down to be like an inch tall and just like run over them and that sounded funny. And there's like a gun where there's like,

• 21:57Speaker 00

  one of the factions is really into advertising. This is a, uh, the first game and this game are both, um, like satirical comedy, like anti corporate satire most of the time. And so one of the factions is a corporation and they have a gun that just shoots ads, like billboards at people that just irritate them. And I'm like, that actually sounds really fun. Like they, they were describing just some of their ideas. And I was like, this sounds really whimsical. And like, they are really leaning into some of the things that were cool in the first game, but weren't really fully expanded upon as much as they could be. And I really got the sense from the devs that they knew that and were like, we really want this game to include more and better of the things that people liked about the first one. Hope it works.

• 22:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. That's good to hear. Yeah. The, the, I remember the shootouts were not that fun in the first one. And then overall, the, the satire was just a little bit one note for me. I just didn't feel as fleshed out.

• 22:50Jason Schreier?

  It was a little much.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  One note is exactly the quote that the developers told me as well. Like I put that in the headline and I was like, wow, you guys just said it, huh? Like that's

• 22:59Kirk Hamilton?

  They're like, we're gonna have so many notes, a whole chromatic scale.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're adding a ton of notes.

• 23:05Jason Schreier?

  Well, this is the E3 experience, right? Like traditionally, I think Steven like once did a story about this. Oh, you know what it was? I think it was about sports games, how like every single year they would just trash the year before sports games, they were improving. So this is like the true E3 experiences, developers being like, here's what we fucked up last time. Now here's what we're gonna get better. Um, but no, this does seem, it's kind of, it's crazy that Obsidian is releasing three games.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  I know.

• 23:32Jason Schreier?

  This year and Avowed this and Grounded Two.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  I guess it's different teams somehow, cause somebody else in my group is gonna be asked about that, but it seems tough anyway.

• 23:41Jason Schreier?

  It is, yep, different teams. Grounded 2 was made, a lot of it was made in Code Dev with Idos Montreal, which is interesting. Grounded 2, I played two, by the way, and was left pretty impressed, left wanting to play more.

• 23:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yeah?

• 23:55Jason Schreier?

  I've never played the first one or really been into survival games that much, but it's pretty fun. If I were to like dive into a survival game, I think this would be a good one to do just because it's so cute and the art style is awesome and the concepts are fun and it's funny and it looked pretty cool from what I saw.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had a good time, too. I really liked the ridable ant that you get and that's new to this game.

• 24:17Jason Schreier?

  The buggy, it's called the buggy.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  It's called a buggy. You're riding a bug. It's fricking adorable. It's a big old red ant and it's just wobbling around. It's like cute and fun to ride. It just felt really good. So yeah, I had a great time with that one. And it kind of made me want to play the first one. I mean, that's what you want, right? You want a person who didn't play the first one to go back and be like, maybe I'll play that.

• 24:42Kirk Hamilton?

  I thought that game, Infinitesimals, looked cool, which is funny. Speaking of grounded, it was another grounded type game where you're playing little tiny aliens. It seems like a fun idea or a fun twist on that Honey, I Shrunk the Kids thing. And it just looked neat. I wouldn't have thought of that for a game and it's kind of just cool to see a game that makes an impression. And actually, Infinitesimals is also a pretty good name.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  It is a pretty good name. I did think that, too. That's an Epic Games title that's upcoming. It was at the show. I just didn't have time for it. I mean, we're barely even scratching the surface of all the stuff I played. I guess now we're firmly in the section of stuff we played at this point.

• 25:16Jason Schreier?

  Well, yeah, I mean, if you guys have talked about all the stuff that you saw, that was cool. There was a lot of stuff announced. There was like a new Super Meat Boy. There was like

• 25:29Jason Schreier?

  High on Life 2, if you guys are stoked about that. Oh, and man, how could we forget the closer to Microsoft's show, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, just coming out with a bang. They're like, you got Black Ops last year and now you get it again.

• 25:44Kirk Hamilton?

  You know what did look cool was the Double Fine game. We don't have to list games that did look cool, but the games that did look cool.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  It actually did look cool, though.

• 25:51Kirk Hamilton?

  That where you're playing a lighthouse.

• 25:52Jason Schreier?

  Keeper.

• 25:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, Keeper.

• 25:54Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 25:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I like Lighthouse Keeper. That looked really neat. I was, I was excited about that.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was really hoping to play that at the show and it wasn't available, but I am excited to check it out.

• 26:03Jason Schreier?

  I suspect that's a tough game to demo because it looks pretty weird and surreal and psychedelic.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Classic Double Fine.

• 26:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's the new, that's a game led by Lee Petty, who also led Rad and Stacking and a few of Double Fine's other games.

• 26:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, for art directors, he's kind of got an art background, which is why his games tend to look amazing.

• 26:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they tend to look really distinct and unique. And then there's another game that Double Fine has that I suspect they're going to announce pretty soon as well, like maybe this year even, that is the, the clay game that, that they talked, they've been talking about for a while. I don't know if they've like made it official public, but like it was pretty clear, if you watch the Psychodysy doc that like, because it was one of their Amnesia Fortnite prototypes, they made it during their, their game jam. And it was pretty clear that they were all stoked about it and like potentially turning it into a real thing. The idea is that it's like a multiplayer game. Like you shape clay.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 27:04Jason Schreier?

  And you fight with clay and stuff like that. Yeah. So I suspect that'll be announced in the near future as well. Cause it's been four years since Double Fine's last game. There was also, there was another teaser of the new Like a Dragon thing, Stranger Than Heaven, like 90s.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  That looked cool.

• 27:22Jason Schreier?

  Like a dragon.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  It was like a period piece, which looked really neat. It's like set in the 40s.

• 27:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a Like a Dragon game exactly. It was kind of its own thing. There were a lot of games like that, honestly. I mean, Clockwork Revolution had that big demo. There were plenty of games where I watched the demo and I thought, this is really cool. It did feel like almost none of the things I saw were coming out this year. So there's that kind of feeling like, okay, well, there's going to be some stuff this year, but you know, but what? I suppose they did mention Silk Song and we should mention that too.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  They mentioned it a lot.

• 27:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Which theoretically is coming this year, so that'll be out. But like a lot of this stuff, you know, Clockwork Revolution, for example, or just any, a lot of these games we're saying are coming out in 2026. So that's a little bit, we just have to wait. But I really did watch a lot of these trailers and think, That looks cool. I'll totally give that a shot.

• 28:07Jason Schreier?

  Mina the Hollower, which I mentioned last week, the next game from Yacht Club, The Shovel Knight People. I played the demo for that on the flight to LA and it's phenomenal. I immediately started a new game of the demo and because I liked it so much. That's like the Game Boy Color style, kind of Link's Awakening style, um, top-down action game. And it feels really, really good. I really enjoyed that. That comes out this year. That's how I bring it up. Comes out October 31st, they said.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Okay, good to know.

• 28:39Jason Schreier?

  And then, yeah, they said Silk Song will be out by the holiday. They showed like a second of new footage while demoing the Rog Ally, uh, the new handheld from Xbox.

• 28:50Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny that we had Deadpool making a joke about Silk Song, but then Silk Song itself got such a kind of left-handed mention or sideways mention, I suppose. No disrespect to left-handed people.

• 29:00Jason Schreier?

  Well, that's what happened at the Nintendo thing, too. It was like part of a sizzle reel at the Nintendo Switch 2 event a couple of months ago.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  It's everybody's favorite sizzle reel appearance. I, I mean, I also did get to play the Xbox handheld.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  And it was very funny to me. I didn't get to play Silk Song on the handheld, but they showed us a really long video before we got to play it, where they just went through every single UI screen that we were going to experience. And Silk Song was on every single UI screen. Like, they just fully committed. And I was like, are they just doing this because this is a room of reporters and they know that this is what we want to play? And they're trying to like psychosomatically be like, you like the handheld because Silk Song's gonna be on it. Now it's not on the one we're giving you today. Anyway, who's to say? I thought it was hilarious. Um, played years before on it.

• 29:46Jason Schreier?

  They must have some deal together because Silk Song is gonna be a day one Game Pass game. They announced that a couple of years ago. So maybe they have some sort of, um, marketing deal in place and that's why it's everywhere.

• 29:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Can I throw something out there, by the way? It's related to Silk Song. Dan Olson, the host of Folding Ideas, gave a talk at PAX about silkposting. That's this whole, it's so good. I've watched like half of it and it's so interesting. And it's his kind of analysis and breakdown of the history of what's called silkposting, which is like shitposting on the Silk Song. subreddit about like or tweeting Silk Song, I can't believe it. And then everyone was like, wait, what, what happened? Did it get announced? And like how there's this whole culture of trolling and shitposting around Silk Song. And honestly, it's like a very funny talk and a very good and informative one. And also just a sort of fun thing to watch in light of the fact that we know Silk Song is coming out. We can link it in show notes, but I just watched like half of it just randomly over the last few days.

• 30:39Kirk Hamilton?

  And I really loved it and this made me think of it. So I wanted to shout it out.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  I'll check it out. I love Dan, Dan Olsen.

• 30:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they like to Photoshop tweets from me in that subreddit.

• 30:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, nice, nice.

• 30:49Jason Schreier?

  Familiar with the silk, the silk posting.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  It's good, it's good bits.

• 30:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very funny. The, the whole thing is very funny.

• 30:54Jason Schreier?

  Um, so there was one game, uh, that I play or saw. I didn't actually get my hands on it, but I saw it and was like, this is cool. This is a game that the three of us will want to talk about at some point. Um, which was not in one of the shows and it's called Grave Seasons. And it is essentially like Stardew Valley meets supernatural murder mystery.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 31:15Jason Schreier?

  And this is a game by, yeah, right? Right?

• 31:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, wait, I think I know this. This, this is, uh, this was like in a sizzle reel a little while ago, right? It's from the horror.

• 31:26Jason Schreier?

  Yes, Blumhouse, it's from Blumhouse.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 31:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Thank you. It's from Blumhouse.

• 31:30Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, um, Jason Blum, the, the infamous horror game, film producer, his game company. Yes, it's from Blumhouse. Um, it's made by this small studio called Perfect Garbage, which I told them was a fantastic name for a game studio.

• 31:43Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very Spider Mansion.

• 31:45Jason Schreier?

  Very good. It comes out next year and I was watching, I didn't actually play it, but I was watching someone play it for a while. And I was, I thought it looked really cool. Um, it's like, it's got the, um, the trappings of a typical cozy, um, sim slash romance game. It has like this, this himbo character that I, that you meet who just like, looks like a hunk. And like all these other characters with these, there's really fun designs that look like they're in a romance game. Um, but then the twists start to happen and it's like people die. And I was talking to, um, one of the writers and she was telling me, um, that, uh, the way it works is that the game, when you start off, the game kind of.

• 32:25Jason Schreier?

  Picks randomly which character will die. And when I first heard that, I was like, oh, oh, man, is this gonna be like a procedural thing where it doesn't really feel like a good story? But she was like, no, it picks randomly. And then it's all a handcrafted story from there. So you can keep replaying it to like, watch different people die. And it'll always be like a, an actual authored story as a result. And then you have to investigate, you have to figure out, like, how it happened and all the supernatural elements. There are like, all sorts of creepy things, like big ghost monsters and-

• 32:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, I love that, you know, Stardew Valley would really benefit from having a mystery to solve. And while there are mysteries, things hidden in the game, the idea of that, of a murder mystery in the town of Stardew Valley would, uh, would be a perfect fit for that game. That's such a good idea.

• 33:09Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it looks really interesting. Again, caveat here is that I didn't actually get to play it, but I thought it looked really interesting. I also, I got to play a game that, Maddie, that you can talk more about it, the Soft Rains game, because you were really into this as well.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  I really like this game. This game's called Ambrosia Sky, and it's gonna be the debut game from a studio called Soft Rains. And I talked to Joel Burgess afterward. He's worked at Bethesda. People probably know his name or are familiar with his work, anyway.

• 33:40Jason Schreier?

  And Ubisoft, same Cappy, yeah, a bunch of places.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And, and it's a really small team and just really super specific thing they're making. My headline version that I will say again is Metroid Prime meets Power Wash Simulator, which is like the most Maddy Myers thing ever. But I don't, I almost don't want to put it in that kind of a box because it's also a story. It's got something to say. And it's not to say that, you know, there isn't lore in Power Wash Simulator, but y'all are picking up what I'm putting down. Basically, you're playing as this, uh, you're a heroine named Dahlia. She's an astronaut, and she's an intergalactic, you know, explorer. And she's revisiting her home planet, and it's

• 34:24Speaker 00

  been completely overrun by this fungus that has poisoned everybody there. Everyone's dead. So she is there to actually perform funeral rites. And so it's actually kind of a sad- Story in some ways because she's like looking back on her past life there and sort of saying goodbye to a series of people that she once knew. But she's also got a water gun and she's cleaning up the fungus the entire way through because she needs to in order to like get to find all of the bodies of her friends. And so it's also like a satisfying cozy game mechanic to go with the haunting sad, okay, I'm like reflecting on my life and what these people meant to me.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  And I loved the music too. I thought the music was really great. It's got like kind of a synth with some real instruments, like there's jaw harps in it. And I did like just a fun interview with Joel about about that and why they chose all the different really specific things that they chose for that game.

• 35:22Jason Schreier?

  Gun feels a little, it's like a little immersive simmy. It feels a little like Prey, almost like the glue gun from Prey. Because in addition to spraying off these like monster fungus things, you can also switch it to put like, put down like these, this electric, electricity conducive goo that you can use to solve puzzles. So you like hook up a power line to something with the goo and use it to conduct power to something else. So it also, it has a lot of immersive sim to it as well, not just like the coziness of a power, power wash simulator.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  There's also like some puzzle solving to get through where you need to go. Yeah, for sure.

• 36:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Sounds a little like everybody's gone to the rapture, actually.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:05Kirk Hamilton?

  At the time, walking simulators were still, were like the thing and now the cozy game cleanup is the thing. So they've just, but it's a similar kind of narrative structure.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:13Kirk Hamilton?

  You're learning about the people who were in a space, which sounds really neat.

• 36:16Jason Schreier?

  Makes sense.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  I thought it was really cool.

• 36:19Jason Schreier?

  I played a couple more things that I just want to shout out real quick. Pragmata.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  Oh, loved it.

• 36:24Jason Schreier?

  Interesting. Yeah, pretty cool. Cool combat. It's, it's rather than just like a typical third person shooter, there's like a, a little hacking mini game that you have to kind of play as you shoot robots, which is pretty cool. I played a game called Tawa, something or another, which is from Bandai Namco. And it is like shockingly similar to Hades. It's like a, like a. Japanese like. There were a few Hades likes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I played Thick as Thieves, which is a multiplayer thief by Warren Spector and his team. Warren Spector being longtime immersive sim forefather behind games like Day of Sex, Ultimate Underworld, etc. I played Dying Light: The Beast. That's a game that comes out in just two months.

• 37:07Jason Schreier?

  Feels like a new Dying Light game. Pretty cool. Looks pretty good. That I'm excited for because I like dying. Yeah, I really liked it. It feels really good to play. I really enjoyed it. And then the thing I really want to talk about is Blighted because that might be my favorite game of the show. This is a game I mentioned earlier that is from Drinkbox Studios. When I first saw it, it kind of, it has that same isometric viewpoint as Hades. So I thought it was a rogue-like and it's going to be Hades-ish, but it's not. It's actually a metroidvania, handcrafted world. And it's got this really cool art style, this really cool world and story about blight and people eating each other's brains. I won't get into all that, but I will say that it felt really good to play and it got me really excited

• 37:48Jason Schreier?

  because those guys at Drinkbox make really good games and that game had me really stoked. It's kind of got a lot of souls to it, a lot of soulsy combat to it. And it also has co-op, so you can play with someone else, which is pretty cool as well. Blighted is the, is the game I was really excited about. I played another couple of things, but none of them really stood out to me. Matty, anything else stand out to you from your time playing stuff of the show?

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Just a couple more. So I played Shadow Labyrinth, which better described as the grim dark Pac-Man game. Like this is an actual official Bandai Namco game with Pac-Man in it. But you're also a mysterious sword fighter who has like a creepy yellow sphere that follows you around. It's like, what if Pac-Man were dark? I, I just find this concept funny.

• 38:37Jason Schreier?

  Pac-Man? Pac-Man just follows you around?

• 38:39Speaker 00

  No, Pac-Man's your buddy. Pac-Man's your buddy. And, okay, so this is a 2D metroidvania. So naturally, it's, it feels great and I'm gonna like it. But here's the most important part of it, for the morph ball mood, you play as Pac-Man. You turn into Pac-Man. That you can eat up little dots and roll around and wall jump as Pac-Man and it feels amazing. You just suddenly start playing Pac-Man at periodic points in the game and it's so good.

• 39:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Total sense.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  It really, really works. The design of the monsters is awesome. It just looks great. There's like, you have a mech suit that you get into at one point and you can just beat the crap out of people in it. It's like your special power up and like the developer was like comparing it to like how when Pac-Man eats a power pellet, he can eat ghosts. And I'm like, yeah, I guess he kind of becomes a mech. That's kind of, I kind of get where you're going with that, but like, it's really just, it's, it's very silly to see Pac-Man juxtaposed with this sort of like dark 2D metroid world, but I really dug it, thought it felt great to play.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Um, and then what was my last one? Oh, Ninja Gaiden 4. That was my last one that I also played. Really liked this one. So

• 39:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  I know people are kind of skeptical of this because this is a, a Team Ninja and Platinum Games collab, which, okay, I mean, Team Ninja, you know, they make the Ninja Gaiden games. They kind of are known.

• 40:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Good action.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Yes, but not necessarily of the same variety. Like I kind of think of Team Ninja as like, okay, it's Neo. It's really like super precise souls. Like you really need to know what you're doing. Whereas for Platinum Games, you could kind of button mash your way through. You need to learn some combos to be really good, but you can also just kind of get through a Devil May Cry if you need to. And it's, you're just feeling like you look really cool while you do it. And I actually think the combination super, super works. I had a great time playing this game. I think it is a nice combination of like, uh, it is a 3D action game. You do lock on. There are some kind of like classic souls, like elements where you're like, okay,

• 40:50Speaker 00

  I need to really pay attention to these attack patterns and think about what I'm gonna do next. But there's also the Platinum Games element where there's a ton of different fun splashy combos to learn and they just look really cool and like there's tons of blood splatter everywhere. To a degree that's like kind of comedic and cartoonish almost and it's like fun and goofy and devil may cry ish in terms of tone. The lead character is really sarcastic and funny. And I liked that stuff too. So like, it is definitely like a heavy dose of platinum games energy in there, which I don't know that all your classic ninja guide and fans are gonna like or not, but it really worked for me. I do like platinum games for the record, but like, I also just thought

• 41:32Speaker 00

  the combination was actually pretty effective. And I think people will hopefully also end up liking it, even if they're just a ninja gated person.

• 41:40Jason Schreier?

  Also comes out this year.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, it comes out this year. It comes out in October. So that one is actually pretty soon to be released.

• 41:46Jason Schreier?

  Nice. Um, all right. Any final thoughts on SGF before we take a break and talk about other things?

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Had a good time. Got to see you in person, Jason. That was fun.

• 41:56Jason Schreier?

  That was fun. Yeah, it was fun. Fun getting to hang out and talk about how awesome the state of media is.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's going great.

• 42:05Jason Schreier?

  Stable, everything.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was, that was what every reporter I met said. They all said, it's going great. And we high-fived.

• 42:12Jason Schreier?

  Did you, uh, did you spend a lot of time at the JW bar, AKA Airport Hilton, Manny?

• 42:18Speaker 00

  A little bit, a little bit. I, I got my, I got my socialization on for sure. I had a lot of, had a lot of conversations. You know what I mean?

• 42:27Jason Schreier?

  Way too much socializing.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  So much socializing. I'm ready to lie down and play video games in the comfort of my own home.

• 42:34Jason Schreier?

  I mean, for people like us, we both work from home. So this is like our one time or two times a year.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  This is like my big mega blast of socializing. And now I retreat to my cave. Feels good.

• 42:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it was a fun, a fun trip. Nice to be there and nice to see you and many other old friends. And, uh, it's, it's always fun to see people who like you only see once or twice a year. And I'm not talking about you because we see each other every week on Zoom. But I'm, but people I only see once or twice a year, but realize that I've known for like 15 years. It's kind of a strange, a strange feeling when it's like, you've known these people for so long, but you only actually see them like once every six months. It's just, it's always fun. All right. Um, let's take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Actor Samantha Sloyan has played a lot of characters. Bev Keen in Midnight Mass, Miss Rohrbacher in the new film The Life of Chuck, Lily, the mother who diligently watches over her son in the hit medical drama The Pit. But what character really made Samantha Sloyan feel seen? That is Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  When you see somebody swing for the fences with almost like no sense of embarrassment or, you know, just a total abandon, I'm just captivated.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Join me, Jordan Cruciola, for that and more on the latest feeling seen from MaximumFun.org.

• 44:06Speaker 05

  Hey. Hey there. Do you love reading smut? Erotica? Romance? Romanticy? Is your e-reader full of horny fairies and sexy shifters? Are your shelves bursting with enemies to lovers? We're reading smut, your new faded mate. Every other Friday, we dive into sexy books and talk to the people who love them. Consider this, are me cute. Reading smut every other Friday on Maximum Fun.

• 44:42Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. Kirk, Matty, it is time for One More Thing. But wait, all of our One More Thing is the same because the new video game console just came out and we all have finally gotten our hands on it, so we should talk about it. All right, the Xbox Rog Ally is here. We don't have prices for those yet, by the way.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  We don't. I'm actually not sure you can preorder them yet.

• 45:06Jason Schreier?

  No, that one is gonna be like $1,000 because they're calling it like, oops, like, for enthusiasts, really powerful, people who really care about performance. It's gonna be like a good... All right, what are we really talking about? We all have the Switch 2. I actually got mine sent to me by Nintendo while I was in Los Angeles. I got mine. You two both bought yours, but I've received games from Nintendo. So a big disclosure here is that the three of us have all in some form or another got some stuff from Nintendo, uh, which we should, which we should say before we talk about it. Um, and, uh, yeah, I've had a bunch of time to play around with it, to play some Mario Kart. Maddie and I played Mario Kart in the JW lobby. That's cool.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  That was really fun, honestly. Describe the mode that we played because this is like the funnest new mode.

• 45:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we were playing knockout, um, rush, which is the mode or the knockout tour, whatever it's called.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  I think it's knockout tour.

• 46:03Jason Schreier?

  Knockout tour, which is the mode that is essentially a battle royale where you play across five different courses and at each kind of, uh, goal, you have to be within, um, the top X. And X keeps changing, keeps getting subtracted by four as you go. So for starters, you have to be in the top 20, then the top 16, then in the top 12, then the top eight, then the top four. Um, and it's super fun. I mean, the game looks gorgeous, feels fantastic, is, is really fun to play. But yeah, let's talk about the, the hardware in general and kind of our thoughts on it after a week of using it. And whether the battery life is really this bad or what. But yeah, let's, let's give some thoughts. Kirk, um, what are your kind of initial thoughts after a week of the switch two?

• 46:47Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a faster, better switch. I mean, that's not really a mind blowing thing to say, but, but that is what it is. And that's a pretty cool thing. I mean, it is a really impressive, sleek little device. It was expensive. I don't think I would have bought it if not for triple click. Like I felt the sting of spending 450 bucks and then, you know, triple click, I guess bought some of my games and Nintendo sent a couple of codes for others, but each, each purchase felt like, geez, man, this is expensive. So I think that was one of the biggest impressions it made on me is just, first off, it's an expensive console. Second, you have to buy a lot of software. If you want to get Tears of the Kingdom running and looking really great, you gotta either pay for it or you gotta get the expansion pass for the online service.

• 47:31Kirk Hamilton?

  There's just a sense that there are a lot of additional expenses, which I remember being true of the first switch as well. For example, uh, there are no under buttons on the switch. Even though the GL and GR buttons are kind of part of the Switch 2 experience, if you have the Pro Controller, there are underbuttons that you can program. And if you have the sold separately dock for the Joy-Con, like the Joy-Con Grip, that has USB-C charging, so you can charge it while you play, and it has the G buttons on the underside. But the included grip doesn't have either of those things, so it doesn't charge the Joy-Con.

• 48:04Jason Schreier?

  Wow.

• 48:05Kirk Hamilton?

  And it doesn't have any of the, it doesn't have the underbuttons. And I think that's actually an issue because when I play games with underbuttons, which I really like doing, I get used to that method of play. You know, if I'm playing a Souls game and I have dodge on an underbutton, I really, like, my brain really learns to play that way. And then it's very hard to switch back, or, you know, I put dodge and attack on those buttons a lot, so they're very, they get a lot of use. And so then I'm having to go back to using face buttons, and it actually is more difficult for me, so then I wind up not really using the underbuttons. I actually found that was true on the Switch. I had a pair of, I think they were Mad Cat's, like, or somebody's custom grips. There were like Joy-Con that go on the side that had underbuttons, but I never used them because, you know, when I played the Switch without those grips, I didn't have access to them.

• 48:49Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a little thing, but there's just a feeling with this thing that it's very, very expensive. You have to get a new SD card if you want to expand the storage. In fairness, I haven't had to expand the storage. All of my games, the games I wanted to play anyways, fit. But so there's that, there's the sense of expense.

• 49:03Jason Schreier?

  It comes with 256GB, which I think will probably be enough for a while.

• 49:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. I mean, I guess, but at the same time, I think it's the fact that in order to get more storage, I can't just take the SD card out of my Switch and pop it into this one.

• 49:15Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that is tough.

• 49:16Kirk Hamilton?

  It's like, oh, okay, one more thing I have to buy. That's my main point, is there's just a feeling of, I need a new case for this thing because it's bigger than the Switch, so I'll have to get a case. And, you know, and there's just a feeling of...

• 49:25Jason Schreier?

  I ordered one on Amazon to my hotel, so I could bring it home in a case.

• 49:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, so it's just kind of that thing with a new console, where there's always a lot more expenses. And given that this console is very expensive, that was something that really stuck out to me. I do like the console, I have a lot more thoughts on it, but I've already talked for a while, so that's one thing that stuck with me.

• 49:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth noting here, I'll throw it to you in a second, Matty, but I do think it's worth noting that this is like, the expenses you're putting in now are an investment for... Ideally, the next seven, eight years. And yes, you'll still have to buy games, but you're never gonna have to buy a Pro Controller again. You're never gonna have to buy a case again. So it does feel like there's that initial price. And I'm with you. We talked about this last week. I don't think any of us would buy the Switch 2 now if not for having to cover it for work. I would wait for like the big holiday game or at least Metroid. But once you make that investment, you're kind of, you're in it for the long haul. It's worth noting.

• 50:14Kirk Hamilton?

  To throw out one other thing that I, that I read and thought was very interesting. I fix it, the website that gives a repairability score to lots of new tech. They give this a three out of 10. They, they took it apart and looked at it. And a lot of the issues that were in the Switch one that caused the stick drift, that caused various things to fail are still there. They haven't like, it's not actually that much better made and it's very, very difficult to take it apart and fix it. There are things that are glued. There are things that are just really hard to access. So while it is an investment, it's a very expensive one and one that is hard to repair. And I think that's also something that people should keep in mind. Yet again, I sound like I'm being really critical and I actually have enjoyed using the Switch 2, but these are all things that are in the back of my mind as I'm enjoying it.

• 50:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, Matty, what are your thoughts on the thing?

• 50:56Speaker 00

  I mean, just to kind of build on what Kirk was saying, I, I'm not gonna be negative the whole time either. But I just want to emphasize something like the launch game is Mario Kart. And something I was thinking about when Jason and I were playing it together in the JW, we were playing it on those two Joy-Cons. Because that's what's available out of the box. And as soon as we completed that race, we both were like, our hands hurt now. Like that is obviously not an ideal way to play Mario Kart is with that tiny little Joy-Con. It's bigger than it was, but it's small. You don't want to play Mario Kart with that thing. And it's just sort of interesting to me that right out of the box, you don't have really a great option to play a multiplayer game. That said, this is also the era of Nintendo trying online multiplayer.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  I unfortunately haven't really had as much time with the Switch 2 because my Switch 2 arrived mere minutes after I left for the airport on Thursday morning. I'm still mad about it. It's fine. Whatever. Who cares? I don't, I don't care that Nintendo decided to launch the console during this time period.

• 51:56Kirk Hamilton?

  I can tell you don't care.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  I'm not even mad at all.

• 51:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Matty's face is the face of a woman who doesn't care.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  But I, even with the limited time I've had with it, I am really digging Mario Kart. And I'm in no way mad that it's a launch game, but I'm also like, this is a game that I personally have seen as a local co-op fun experience. So I'm gonna need to buy some more controllers if I'm gonna make that happen in my household. That's fine. It's just building on the additional expenses that Kirk was talking about because I do feel like playing Mario Kart with friends in person is part of what's really fun about it, but I also don't want them to hurt their hands. So I'm already thinking ahead.

• 52:31Jason Schreier?

  So you don't, you don't have to buy, you can use the Switch Ones.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  You don't have to.

• 52:34Jason Schreier?

  Well, you can use the Switch Ones, Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers on your Switch 2. So like, if you have an old Pro Controller, if you have the, the thing, um, the, again, the thing you insert the Joy-Cons into from the Switch One.

• 52:45Kirk Hamilton?

  The Grip.

• 52:46Jason Schreier?

  You can probably finagle like enough controllers to be able to play local co-op without having to buy a bunch of new Pro Controllers.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  And I will be seeing what I can do. Yeah.

• 52:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Let me speak to that because so my nieces have been visiting this week and I have been playing a bunch of local Mario Kart World using Switch One. Two, they brought up one of their Pro Controllers and I use my Pro Controller from the Switch One and we use some Joy-Con from the Switch One, which you can pair to the Switch 2. So we have had no shortage of controllers and that's totally fine. All of them are fine. They work really well.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  That's really.

• 53:16Kirk Hamilton?

  And that game is so freaking fun to play in split screen. Um, man, it, it's, it's not as smooth and wonderful as it is in either two-player or single-player because it runs at 30 frames per second when you're in split-screen four-player or three-player. So it's just a little harder to feel totally in control. The way that when you first play this thing, either on the huge screen of the Switch 2 or on your TV, it's really remarkable. It's running so smooth. It's so vivid at a high resolution. You really feel in control. It's a little harder to feel in control, but man, Knockout Tour, you mentioned it already, and that mode is so fun just at a first impression. The first time you play through it because of the elimination, you know, slightly Battle Royale, I guess, structure.

• 54:01Kirk Hamilton?

  This feeling that there's this series of climactic races, you know, to a finish line that just, it just keeps going and going and going. When you're in the same Room with people, especially, you know, excited young people who you're playing alongside and are having such a good time. Like, we had a blast. It was so much fun. And actually, I feel like, once they leave, my Switch 2 experience will not be as fun as it was when they were here. They came at the perfect time. So I really like, heartily endorse playing split-screen knockout tour with other people. It's so much fun.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's cool. And just to kind of echo the other thing you were getting into, Kirk, I do like the feel of the Switch 2 a lot so far. I like the magnets. They feel really good. I like that you can quote-unquote "accidentally" put the Joy-Cons in wrong and you don't get punished for that.

• 54:51Kirk Hamilton?

  First thing I did.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  That is something the Switch 1 doesn't do and was deeply stressful to me and honestly, still is, although I don't know that I'm gonna be using my Switch 1 that much anymore. But being able to just like, put the, those Joy-Cons in whatever, putting them into the version of the grip that comes with, comes in the box, great, feels great. I haven't used the mouse enough to really weigh in on that. I don't love the feel of it so far. No surprise there. I'm probably the biggest mouse skeptic on this show and I have been from the jump, but I'm waiting for it to win me over and I will absolutely update the listeners if it does. Really curious about Metroid Prime with a mouse. Like, I just, I don't know. And I guess I should also amend what I said before.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  There's no universe where I didn't buy the Switch 2 for Metroid Prime. Like, Jason, you kinda said that previously, where you were like, "Well, we wouldn't be buying it if not for TripleClick and maybe I'd wait for Metroid." Like, I know with certainty, games journalists are no, every timeline of Matty is buying that for Metroid. So even though we don't have a release date-

• 55:57Jason Schreier?

  Really? Well, but you could just play it on the Switch 1.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  I know, but it's gonna look so much better on the Switch 2, isn't it?

• 56:03Jason Schreier?

  Well, that's, well, the question is, is it, is it $500 better?

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Well, but in this other reality, I, I am a stockbroker or whatever we said, so I can afford it as well, right? Anyway, I, I just, I'm, this has made me very excited for Metroid, is all I can say. Like, I do feel like Mario Kart looks great. I'm loving it. 60 frames a second, beautiful. I'm just like, I'm really excited for Metroid Prime now, is really what this is.

• 56:28Jason Schreier?

  So, okay, a couple of thoughts from me. One is that playing it and testing it out for the last week, it is really striking for me how thin the launch lineup is. And I know it's sold, I believe Nintendo just announced that it's sold three and a half million units, making it their fastest console launch ever, which is impressive. And I imagine all of those three and a half million players are just playing Mario Kart nonstop because there's not a lot of other games to play on this thing. I've been playing a little bit of Braveheart Default HD, which feels like a game from 2013. I mean, there's a lot of games to play. They're just Switch games. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. I've been playing. I've been, yes. But that's worth mentioning. Yeah, it's true. Although in my testing, only a few of them actually feel and look

• 57:11Jason Schreier?

  better on this thing. Only a few of them have framerate enhancements and it's all Nintendo games from what I've seen. So like, for example, going from Tears of the Kingdom at 60 frames a second, which is incredible, to like, I was testing out Final Fantasy XII because I had that loaded in, and that like is running at 30 frames a second and doesn't really look that great. And it's a little bit of a disappointment there. But also, just in terms of new stuff, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff to play on this thing. And I imagine it just kind of sitting on the shelf for a while after the novelty of like checking out all of these big AAA things, like maybe when Elden Ring comes out, I'll check it out. I just got a code sent to me by Warner for Hogwarts Legacy, so I'm sure I'll check

• 57:56Jason Schreier?

  that out just to see how it runs on the Switch too. But like, outside of the the kind of novelty of checking out all these games, I don't know how much time I'm gonna spend with this thing until there's a lot more Nintendo first-party stuff to play, which hopefully there will be in the next year. But like we've been saying, and like I wrote about on Bloomberg, console launches, you're always just buying, you're investing in the next few years. You're investing in this platform that is going to be your springboard for the next few years. And it almost doesn't matter what it has at launch, other than the question of whether to buy it now or not. The other thing that is noteworthy to me and might be a bigger problem is that I have found that the battery drains really fast. I don't know about you guys, but.

• 58:38Jason Schreier?

  I've been kind of looking at the percentage indicator and been shocked by like how 10 minutes of play, it'll be down like 5% or something like that. Um, I'm a little nervous about what that's gonna look like in the future, especially as the games get more intense, but um, in my experience, it seems pretty grim. I haven't done like extensive testing. I'm sure there's some YouTube video out there that has like really elaborate battery tests.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Digital Foundry will do it at some point. Just tell us the numbers.

• 59:05Jason Schreier?

  But just in my own kind of amateur, just playing around and seeing what it's like. Uh, I've been a little worried about the battery.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good to know.

• 59:14Kirk Hamilton?

  I appreciate that the software allows you to keep it at 90%, which will allow the battery to last longer. Sort of a standard feature now in a lot of uh, technology, but it's something that they added. There's a lot of little software stuff like that. That's nice. You can remap per game, which is cool. Some accessibility features that are neat. And yeah, I don't know, setting this thing up and just porting over my whole Switch library just really underlined what a different kind of console launch this is for Nintendo compared to previous systems. I mean, I, I just, I, there are a ton of games on here and it made me realize for the last few years, the Switch has kind of been a console where I'll start a game and then not really finish it or play that much of it and think, that was really fun. I should go play more.

• 59:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And with the Switch 2 now, I'm, I'm kind of having this feeling of, oh yeah, Bayonetta 3. I know that was sort of, some people were mixed on it, but I hear that it actually does run better now.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  It's got some great boss battles in it too. I, it's worth it, even if you don't like the story, which I did not. If you enjoy playing a game, it's good.

• 1:00:12Kirk Hamilton?

  And I was reading that it runs better now on Switch 2, that there are just some games where they had unlocked frame rates that now just run at a solid 60. I, I believe the Witcher 3 also runs a lot better. Not that I'm gonna play the Witcher 3 on this console, but you know, like, there is kind of that. That Cyberpunk is out, which I know some people will, it'll be their first time playing Cyberpunk.

• 1:00:30Jason Schreier?

  You're gonna play the Witcher 4 on the Switch 2, of course.

• 1:00:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, that'll be out on the Switch 5 or whatever and it'll finally run at 30 frames per second in 2031. No, but so anyways, I, the, the feeling of looking at it of thinking, oh, you know, I've got all this Tears of the Kingdom stuff that I want to do. And playing this game, I mean, Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild both look beautiful if you have the paid, I should say, but the $10 upgrade for either of those games. I mean, man, it's really cool to play Tears of the Kingdom especially and be summoning, you know, huge devices that you've made and have it running at a locked 60. It looks really good on the TV and it does make me want to just go back and finish the vast amount of that game that I never finished. And then there's a bunch more other games like that, too. So while there aren't that many new games, there is Mario Kart and that's really fun.

• 1:01:18Kirk Hamilton?

  And that feels fresh and new, but also a lot of this other stuff feels pretty cool to me. Like I do have a significant library on this console for a new, a quote unquote, new console.

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's kind of like getting a new computer or something.

• 1:01:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, exactly. Or a new iPad, like I was saying last week.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Where you're like, I'm just getting a new computer and now I'm playing all my old games on my new computer that I just bought.

• 1:01:39Jason Schreier?

  Right, right.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40Jason Schreier?

  The load times are much, much faster, especially on Tears of the Kingdom, which even without, I tested out Tears of the Kingdom even without getting, like before, getting the Switch 2 upgrade. And even though the, the graphics aren't like a huge improvement from Switch 1, although it seemed like the framerate was a little more stable. You don't get 60 frames a second unless you get the upgrade, but the loading times are much, much faster even without the dedicated Switch 2 upgrade. I just was looking at Reddit a little bit and it does seem like people have found improvements in a bunch of random games. So I think it's the type of thing where the more testing you do, the more you'll, you'll kind of see.

• 1:02:18Kirk Hamilton?

  I know one of the Pokemon games is infamously bad on Switch and now runs really well.

• 1:02:23Jason Schreier?

  The most recent one, I believe.

• 1:02:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Is that the one?

• 1:02:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, Scarlet and Violet and now it runs.

• 1:02:28Kirk Hamilton?

  That sounds right.

• 1:02:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, our buddy Mike was talking about that when I saw him in LA.

• 1:02:33Kirk Hamilton?

  That was a big deal for Pokemon fans.

• 1:02:35Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, can I just add one more thing about Mario Kart? I think I'm the only one of us that got the Mario Kart bundle, right?

• 1:02:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  Okay, so I don't know why I thought that was going to come with a box with Mario Kart in it.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  It did not. Let me show you to what it came with. It came with this tiny piece of paper that I almost couldn't find in the box and was scared and was like,

• 1:03:01Kirk Hamilton?

  That's

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Did I not get Mario Kart? No, there's like a business card with a game code on it. And I was a little, I was a little like, okay, well, I guess I'm not even getting the box. So that's what you get if you got the Mario Kart bundle. In case anybody was wondering, may as well just purchase it in the store. Yes, you don't get the discount, but yeah, I just thought that was an interesting choice. Oh, well.

• 1:03:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Pokemon. So Pokemon was one game that looks much better. Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, the one that came out last fall, ran like garbage on the Switch one, runs much, much better.

• 1:03:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Garbage is maybe overstating it, but it had some

• 1:03:39Jason Schreier?

  Okay. I mean, it was pretty bad. It stuttered a lot. Yes. And Link's Awakening also, both of those games, similar art style, had a lot of struggles in the Switch one. Both of them run much better on the Switch two. A lot of Nintendo first party stuff has gotten these kind of quiet, like Super Mario Odyssey runs 60 frames a second in handheld mode, which is awesome. So yes, I mean,

• 1:03:58Kirk Hamilton?

  I believe they added HDR to Odyssey as well.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. I never beat that game. I should go back and beat it.

• 1:04:03Jason Schreier?

  You should. Yeah. Well, it's really good. And then once you beat it, there's a lot more to do.

• 1:04:07Kirk Hamilton?

  And Bowser's Fury got some updates too, and I never finished that.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  And that already looked really good.

• 1:04:12Kirk Hamilton?

  This is my experience where I'm like, wow, Bowser's Fury, I never finished that. The game was fun as hell. Why don't I go back and finish it? And then I probably won't, but I, it makes me really want to.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  But it's fun to pretend that you will.

• 1:04:21Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a me problem. I'm just too busy, but like if I had more time, I definitely would.

• 1:04:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. So point being, yes, Matty, I think your comparison is pretty good that it's like you just got a new PC and you're like, oh, I should test out all these games that I own and see how they run now, like see how much better they run now. So in that sense, it's pretty cool. But in terms of new stuff, I think that the lineup is pretty thin and we'll see if that changes. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, again, you're just buying the platform where you will play all of your Nintendo games for the next few years. So like, whether you buy it now or you wait a couple of years and then just buy it when the next Zelda comes out, it doesn't really matter other Than like what you get to play at any given time from Nintendo. But yeah, I mean, then there's also people who like don't have a Steam Deck or any sort of handheld PC

• 1:05:08Jason Schreier?

  and might be very curious to play a lot of these third-party games portably, which will be cool, Cyberpunk being a good example of that. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's an interesting launch and I'm sure we'll be talking lots more about it in the weeks and months to come, especially as Nintendo announces more stuff. One other thing is that as far as we know, as of us recording this on Wednesday, June 11th, no Nintendo Direct just yet for June.

• 1:05:38Kirk Hamilton?

  And it was interesting that they announced a Splatoon 3 expansion and update just as a press release. So it almost makes me like, that's the kind of thing that would be in a Direct.

• 1:05:47Jason Schreier?

  No, they, they announced a totally new Splatoon game, not an expansion. It was like a spinoff game.

• 1:05:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, okay. So a spinoff and an update to Splatoon 3.

• 1:05:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Kirk Hamilton?

  So basically they announced something that you would have thought would be in a Switch 2 Direct just separately, which makes me wonder about Direct timing.

• 1:06:05Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  And if they're gonna do one at all. I had been assuming this whole time they would do one, but...

• 1:06:09Jason Schreier?

  Well, they, they almost always do one in June. Last year, they did one like a week or two after Summer Game Fest.

• 1:06:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think it took us a while to find out.

• 1:06:18Jason Schreier?

  So it could still be, yeah, I mean, it could be next week that they just drop one.

• 1:06:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Could be they've got so much for the Direct that the Splatoon stuff just, that was a little, that was just extra.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  That was a little appetizer.

• 1:06:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Could be exciting. Could be a good thing.

• 1:06:30Jason Schreier?

  Very possible.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  We shouldn't be hoping for that.

• 1:06:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, very possible. It does feel like we need a Metroid release date.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  Yes, please.

• 1:06:37Jason Schreier?

  Which like has to be imminent, right? Because they've said it's this year, so they have to be like, yay, it's coming in September or something. And also, right now, the holiday lineup for them is pretty lacking. So they need to say something, whether it's a 3D Mario game or like some other big surprise. So it does feel like we'll get a Nintendo Direct soon and that, I think, will make a lot more Switch 2 owners excited about owning the machine and being able to get their hands on one. By the way, they're still difficult to get. I was at a GameStop in LA and just for kicks, I ran in and was like, "Hey, like, do you guys have any Switch 2s?" They were like, "No." I was like, "Are you getting new stock in or is it all just the pre-order stock?" And they were like, "No, we haven't gotten any new stock in." This was a few days after launch, so.

• 1:07:19Kirk Hamilton?

  I would have to imagine that over the next couple of months, also, a lot of the third-party games that currently have games on Switch 1, some more of them will release updates for Switch 2, the way No Man's Sky now has a Switch 2 version. I would think, especially as more and more people get Switch 2s, there's a pretty good incentive for a lot of independent devs and third-party devs to patch their games and update them. And so that'll just kind of be a steady cadence of, hey, check this out. It runs really well on Switch now. And for a lot of people, that'll probably be really cool.

• 1:07:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, for sure. Okay, cool. All right. Well, that is that for this week's episode. Kirk, Maddie, I'll see you both next week.

• 1:07:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we'll see you next week.

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:08:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click 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. Triple Click 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. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:08:58Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.