Giant Bombcast 562: Super Dark Souls

Oh I'm so happy that Sonic artwork landed before you guys started recording.

Super fast gotta go fast sonic cast!

No warning for having that image on the homepage?

That Sonic will live in my nightmares.

A lot of people talking about Smash characters being locked, but I kind of like it? It reminds me of when I bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and everything came unlocked. It took all the will for me playing single-player.

@theshrubber: It gives it legs as a single player game, but if you want to treat it like a traditional fighting game, not having all characters unlocked (or in this case, only a very small fraction of the characters unlocked) at the start is a real issue. I can imagine a scenario where you invite your friends over to play, but one of them gets shitty because you don't have their favorite character unlocked yet. Heck, I had that happen back in the day with Brawl back when it first came out.

If saved data can't be easily transferred to unlock the roster, it's going to make setting up for a tournament more of a hassle if they have to all be unlocked across every switch that's going to be used.

I'm really glad they did it this way though, because I'm not a fighting game fan and I like unlocking things. I haven't played at all since Brawl, so if I suddenly had all the characters available it would be overwhelming.

@theshrubber: Also, imagine picking this game up if you've never played a Smash game before and 70+ characters are available. It would be really overwhelming. I'm glad they give some time to adjust to characters as they unlock. Though I also understand TOs wanting to have everything there from the start.

If God loved us, would He have given us this Sonic image?

Hey hey. Download works on mobile on the first upload

@kodamun: Its just anecdotal, so take this with a grain of salt, but I had a bunch of friends over after it launched, and we actually had a blast unlocking new characters together. For the first couple of hours, you'll hit a new character unlock after every fight, (or at least we did with 4 player 3-stock) and it was kinda a cool thing having the winner of each of our fights go up against the AI to secure that unlock. I can see how not everyone might be in for that kind of experience though.

I'll never understand Jeff's hangups with Smash not fitting his description of a "proper" competitive game, or saying Nintendo should view it as mostly a party game. You can view it as a party game all you want, and it definitely has all the tools to be one and a lot of people enjoy it as such. However, let's not pretend that they didn't spend the entirety of e3 this year on nothing but very specific character changes that only people who are serious about competitive Smash would care about.

I love Exapunks but now I think that talking about how your code works can somehow be more complicated than actually writing out solutions.

Painful to listen to them try and describe ea series they know nothing about. Wonderboy the original game was identical in gameplay to Adventure Island but AI came after Wonderboy because of rights issues. SEGA kept Wonderboy as West Stone developed and created WB series and Hudson renamed the original NES port to Adventure Island. They each became their own series. Wonderboy developed into the Metroid style platform RPG. Adventure Island remained mainly the same. Wonder Boy eventually turned into Monster World with Monster World IV even tho it was not the 4th Monster World but the 4th Wonder Boy game. The last official Wonder Boy game despite it starred a female character. A first in the series. Monster Boy was originally a Kickstarter game as Flying Hamster II. It was an homage to Wonderboy. The creator helped with the Dragon's Trap remake and Monster Boy a spiritual successor. @bradshoemaker

Good lord the dunking on Smash Bros, really disheartening to listen to as someone who loves the gameplay of Smash. To nitpick at the game so much but not mention the actual grand accomplishment of just how big the game is pretty whatever. And Ben, please Ben stop just spreading 'things you've heard', you're on a major platform and spreading misinformation (in regards to no online 1v1 battles, make or join a 1v1 lobby they're great fun, not sure what was meant with no being able to exit training mode also).

At some point it’s just ridiculous the level of ridicule/critique Smash gets from most of the guys. I would understand if it was about the quality of the release but these are complaints about the fundamental gameplay and structure of the series since it’s inception.

I remember when Austin made the point during the GOTY podcasts awhile back when the Fallout 4 debate happened. He equated it to if you bought a Hyundai and it broke down on you in a particular way and you kept buying a Hyundai even though it keeps breaking down after the 6th or 7th time you can’t really complain anymore it’s on you.

I remember Wrecking Crew! That was a NES game what had a level editor, shit was wild for its time and the core game wasn't bad. Wrench monsters.

LostWinds was an early WiiWare game, and a good one. The VR game Jeff's confusing it with is Windlands. Hyped for The Last Campfire, really dig the style!

Hey Ben...you can quit the training mode from the menu. There is a big button at the top of the screen that says "Quit Training" ...yeah Ben is spreading false info

@elnelso: Agreed. The way they dump on Smash sounds like a bunch of troll comments in a Youtube section or N4G. It's pretty pathetic.

This podcast art filling the home screen justifies the entire site redesign

@ryudo: Yeah I’m genuinely confused what did he mean by that?

Oh of course. I wrote in about Ashen this week but the Epic store news being the center focus -of course Ashen would get mentioned. I too almost forgot about that game, remembering it every once in a while while playing Absolver; wishing between multiplayer matches that there were more singleplayer games with a similar vibe (wood-carved simplicity and elegant design, and minimal interruption from the game). Stealth launch, only 40 bones, and it's good! Surprises like this are super rare, and Ashen + Hades in light of the over-packed AAA release year. In the same thought though, I am very glad this game showed up on a new store-platform, because like Absolver, I'm not quite sure how well that game would be received in the overly-negative steam store. Good on you Epic, extra kudos for Journey on PC.

On the other end, what is up with Square? Just Cause 4 and The Quiet Man, I applaud their attempts at creativity and all and it's okay to come up short sometimes, but, Square, hey, please, make sure your video games are finished or fun, one of the two would be good? I know I just went on about Ashen and Absolver which have had their share of jank and issues but those 20-ish-person-team budget titles are compelling in every direction they go, and it feels like square is pushing games-by-numbers ranging from poor to acceptable out and or not giving enough of a budget/time to their developers, or maybe they don't give a shit about much other than kingdom hearts right now- either way, the Just Cause 4 water downgrade is hilarious as Square used to be kind of a benchmark setter in the early days of 3D in games....Same goes for you, Bethesda?

Man, indie devs are killing it.

@bigwinnerx: it's a gritty reboot

The beastcast has become so much easier to listen to, the rampant negativity on this one was tough and I couldn't give two shits about Smash personally.

I see it's time for videogame movies to enter their "awkward teen phase" and try to jettison anything that could be construed as "fun" or "silly."

Workin' GREAT for DCEU, guys! It won't be the least bit silly trying to market a fast-talking, blue rodent as lacking silliness.

@doncabesa: I think in general the east coast is just a much happier bunch and thus are more enjoyable to watch/listen to, at least when Ben got added to the west coast it helped freshen it up cause it was getting really bad (boring). But yeah the overly negative tone gets a little much at times.

I dunno if you'll read this Jeff but you have the complete right idea about that Exapunks level. I did it the exact same way except for clipping the value at the second EXA instead of the first (I don't think this would make any difference). Very light "hint" below.

My poorly optimised solution...

Unlocking all the characters takes like two days if you set your mind to it. Also I have to disagree about final fantasy. It is a limited by not having more music, or any spirits, but that Midgar stage is incredible. It has all the summons, and it is sweet. And they may only have two songs, but it is the best two. Also, Jason was flat wrong about the costumes. He has several colors for both classic looking cloud, and emo advent children cloud.

I went into the training mode in smash and there is a big quit training mode at the pause menu...

Lot of people really having a normal one in these comments.

Yeah, the west coast crew has seemed less fun/spontaneous/creative ever since Dan left. I like Ben quite a bit, he really brings the best out of Jeff but he isn't that same creative spark that Dan was. Brad is great but has been doing this a long time, Rorie is mainly working in back, Jan and Jason are both awesome but focused on producing and not creating as well. Jeff is one of my favorite people in the industry but he's the big boss of the whole shebang so you don't expect tons of positive high-energy content out of him since he's so busy. Not sure if they have a want/need/budget for someone else but the west coast could use it in my humble opinion as a long time premium member.

@bigwinnerx: Christ this is a nightmare.

For what it's worth in Brad's "Game Award news" run down, there are indeed sno-mobiles in PUBG, tracking foot prints is pretty nice, and Bioware has already come out and said Dragon Age 4 is a 2021 landing date.

Love and prefer the west coast if we're really going there; few of the personalities really suit me on the east but I try not to make a big deal about it. I do wish Dan was with the west crew still but it is what it is. I just like whenever the west has an opinion on something people always have to feel so slighted. Prefer their humor and that they are still somewhat devoted to game talk rather than being overly zany and going off on pointless tangents. Sorry, just have to put in a word for my fave crew as they typically get shit on a good deal of the time for usually pretty petty reasons.

Great cast and thanks for showing honest feelings about Smash even though I still love those games for the most part.

Good job finding things to complain about in Smash. :P (I know, it's important to.) It's the first Smash game I am really enjoying, so much so that I might not be able to stop playing.

The thing that strikes me most is that they have most definitely made the game feel smoother. The previous Smash games always made me feel like I was playing a gimped platformer turned into a fighting game. This one doesn't feel that way.

I find it more fun to watch than melee so I wonder if it will be able to conquer a spot at EVO. Especially now that they are figuring things out like the pivot cancel. This is also a game that can be patched. So I want to see how the tierlist is going to change. The tournament they had, had Fox as a winner and it surprised people, and I think that is cool. (I know Fox was great before, but I bet he'll be dethroned next time.)

Brad, the menus in Monster Hunter World are not clunky. If you're asking for a one-click solution like a matchmake or quickplay button then I can't help you and let's just agree to disagree. Not everything is about instant gratification.

Jeff's enthusiasm is magical, every time when he's singing effusively about a game, I become interested in it. Now I'm really interested in getting Exapunks

Ben reached Dan of confusion during the EXAPUNK segment

Jason making little celebratory noises when he finds out competitive players can't play the game as they like and various little quips from multiple people toward how Smash is "meant to be played" is embarrassing.

@ripelivejam: I'm with you, duder. I don't know if I prefer one coast over the other, as they both have their positives. I do just find it funny that the West is labeled this group of grumps just because Jeff predictably hated Smash and Jason is tepid on it. That reaction, mixed with their usual hyperbole (which is featured on both coasts), has somehow become "they're always negative" when in the same episode they sang the praises of, for examples, an Early Access game and, Jeff specifically (the guy always labeled as the one who hates everything), was like an excited teenager about EXAPUNKS.

Heck, there is frustration here because they didn't know more about Wonder Boy and Monster Boy despite them all saying up front that they didnt know much about them. Sometimes it just feels like people go in ready to be irritated by something.

Seconded. Lovable mellow guy.

Also, Jason is right: Gungrave is fucking garbage. All of r/psvr agrees as well. It is as expected, seeing as it's a spinoff of a game that became a cult classic because of style, not so much the gameplay. Hard to coast on style alone in VR..

VR is hard to do right, and they tried to make 3 different games in one.. And they didn't do any of them right.. Makes me think this game was mostly a series of experiments where they tried to figure out how to make VR, and then just bundled all their tests into one "game" and shipped it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3cRpYGVPsU

A bit of The Outer Worlds gameplay in case anyone missed it.

Jeff's certainty and dismissal of Smash is pre-All Systems Goku levels of garbo. And Ben doesn't really help, since he knows enough about the competitive Smash scene to say it exists but not enough to refute all the stereotypes that often come from people like Jeff who proclaim to not even play the game. This is some oldschool fighting game fan elitism going on.

Talk to a Smash TO. They could tell you what you're clearly mistaken about and maybe make some other things make more sense.

I’m shooooked that Brad didn’t mention anything about Below (unless it happens during the last 26 minutes) finally coming out in just a few days. Guess they’re saving it for UPF or for GBeast to tackle it?

So quiet