Giant Bombcast 551: Digital Didgeridudes

Get the kids out of the room and let's Bombcast!

Happy to hear the VC4 PC port is good!

P.S.
Wash your jeans. Seriously.

I wash my jeans twice a year, tops. Only when they're visibly dirty. On the rare instances that the smell, I febreeze that shit.

Put jeans in the freezer if they are not physically dirty.

1:23:23 - Telltale

I'm also only watching this so I can see the 'failed' high 5 between Ben and Jeff I heard on the Bombcast. That then descended into foley CV portfolios.

Also 'on the seventh day he rested' - the sabbath. The end of the week is a Sunday, guys. (sorry for the spam, I know this isn't the live chat).

The dog in Valkyria Chronicles is an Akita, not a Shiba btw.

Not much has changed since Horizon 1, racing games are still less-than because of the genre. I vaguely remember Jeff and Ryan agreeing about that during GOTY time.

Sabbath is Friday eve to Saturday eve.

Ben looks ready to cut me here.

Who the hell actually likes Hollow Knight? Why do people keep trying to like it? It's a horrible game that plays terribly and is full of shitty mechanics that actively hate you and your time.

"You have to be friends with the person in the tank"

As a person that doesn't play souls games and hasn't yet played Hollow Knight, Ben's complaints about that game pretty much sound like complaints/praises people give the souls games.

@depecheload: It's one of my favorite games of all time and I'm perplexed as to how it's reception on this site continues to be negative. Joseph Anderson's review on YouTube sums up my feelings on it if you're curious, but I disagree you with on feel and shitty mechanics. The game is super responsive (you immediately accelerate to full speed when you move) and you end up with a lot of movement options and meaningful choices as to how to approach certain encounters. The death mechanic adds stakes and tension, and the map mechanic forces you to actually pay attention to where you've been and rewards you for playing mindfully. It also makes the exploration aspect more rewarding; I loved the feeling of being off the map in a new, dangerous place. When you finally find the map maker, you get a nice jolt of relief.

Also, Ben: there is an NPC in the town that will retreive your shade and your money for a rancid egg if you find yourself in that situation again. You can open his door with a simple key.

correct me if im wrong but im pretty sure you lose your map and progress if you die before reaching a save point in metroid and castlevania ? why does ben seem to think that no punishment on death is a 'core element of medtroidvania games' ? im pretty sure if you explore blindly and make no effort to map your progress , to the point that losing said progress feels like a massive punishment ,, as jeff tried t hint .. why is this the games fault and not the players for understanding the risks and scope of his attempts to explore every available nook and cranny?

but again i could be wrong , i could be suffering a mandela effect where my memory of those games was being punished and losing all progress and map exploration for dying

Ben saying that Hollow Knight has bad exploration is so wrong that I can barely process it. The entire point of that game IS exploration and the reason that it's so great. Maybe it's because I never lost any money during my playthrough but I thought it was more generous than most games with dying where you just have to hit an extremely slow and easy ghost to get everything back. It's not like it's that difficult to remember which way you went... it's either left right up or down. I would say that most "rooms" are pretty distinctly different from one another too. Not to mention that losing money barely matters, I finished the game with like 30,000 Geo and nothing to spend it on - plus you have the extremely useful and good bank to save money just in case.

Man Hollow knight fans sure do get shirty if anyone dares to levy a criticism against it

TAKES:

monday is the first day of the week. there are two types of days: days in the week and days in the weekend. why would the week start in the middle of the weekend? why would the week start in one type of day, turn to five days of the other type of day, and end on the first type of day? that doesn't make any sense! you've been brainwashed by calendars! there's no difference between a saturday and a sunday! so why would sunday be the start of the week? it'd make more sense if you thought saturday was the start of the week.

bens complaints about hollow knight are the same complaints people make about dark souls, and as someone whos bounced off of ds1 like three times and really liked hollow knight, it's finally my turn to say it: git gud. losing all your currency because you died is shit that happens in video games, and describing that mechanic as "antithetical to the metroidvania experience" feels like a complaint that arose solely from being frustrated that he experienced something he didnt want to happen.

describing experiencing a failstate in a game as "being punished" strikes me as the exact thing that led to xbox 360 era game design where the player never died, was never "punished" and sailed through the game without ever really being challenged. sometimes games are harder than others. i feel like this game is getting a bad rap that it doesnt deserve :/

@49th: Yeah, the game's healing system points to the fact that it wants you to explore. So long as you play methodically, you will always be able to replenish your health and continue on.

Ben's experience shouldn't be disheartening, it should teach him a valuable lesson: spend your money or put it in the bank. But money is an unlimited resource, and losing a good amount of it won't set you back as much as you think.

I think HK controls more tightly than Super Metroid. Air controls in SM are very clumsy, and horizontal hops are imprecise. SM is a great game, but I think the devs intended the movement to feel like you were in an unwieldy suit rather than hyper dextrous space ninja.

Also on movement, HK has the same cloud step as The Messanger that everyone enjoys so much. Once you unlock them, the dash and double jump recharge when you attack an enemy or hazard in mid air. This makes the combat much more bouncy and aeriel as you progress through the game. The optional combat arenas in particular become super kinetic as you fight waves of flying enemies without any ground to land on.

Why does it matter to you if anyone else likes the game or not? Everyone has differing tastes and that's cool, just because some one else dislikes something you like does not make them wrong they just have a difference of opinion, be secure in your tastes as long as they do not harm others and have enough confidence in your tastes that you don't need the validation of others to feel secure that you like something.

@dachopper: I am very secure in my tastes, and I think my post was a pretty reasonable explanation of a positive opinion. Aren't we all here to discuss video games?

No, Sunday is not the first day of the week.

7th day he rested? not the first? I guess sunday truly is the end of the week! To start the week with a sunday, we have to wave away this first week eventhough it's the one that the bible deems important enough to start with. Resting before doing anything is also a weird concept.

I like how Jeff sneakily puts an S behind weekend to give some credence to the idea of the weekends being like bookends. Instead, we talk about the weekend. The end of the week. Some great banter in this clip :D

@ilserpente: Additionally it is strange to hear complaints about corpse run backs when everyone loves Dead Cells but that game due to being run based is a constant series of runbacks. Complaining that you have to go get your corpse seems weird when in Dead Cells if you die to a later boss you need to run through all the levels and bosses leading up to him which seems a lot worse and is in fact the reason I couldn’t continue playing that game.

Timespinner looks good as hell

The games within games stream/series should be called Exhibit G.

@humanity: I know you have it in for the guy for some odd reason, but come on. He's giving it an honest shot and he's made it clear it's mostly his subjective opinion (though I think he backed it up well). I probably didn't feel the roadblocks to exploration as severely in my attempts at playing it but they're definitely there and were enough for me to at least put it aside for a bit though I've tried tackling it on both PC and Switch.

Dead Cells is a different game (and it's cool if you don't like it too like Ben didn't like Hollow Knight!) and I feel the whole running through the first parts of the game over and over is just part and parcel of its genre. At least the gameplay makes it so you can just book it through the early parts if you want; not ideal but it's something. I would also argue that the base gameplay remains engaging enough to keep the early stuff fun still.

It's pretty much any Soulsbornelikehardcore game/genre fan whenever someone expresses a criticism of their beloved game(s), even if it is clearly subjective and due to the person's taste (as Ben made clear). Nope, he's 100% objectively wrong and here is my 100% counter opinion on why he's wrong!

I feel like Hollow Knight actually encourages exploration. I mean that is the whole point of the map system, to get out there and run around in the dark. I really enjoyed the sense of discovery the game had and the super gratifying moments of hearing the map guy singing.

Also I lost very large amounts of currency early on and mid game multiple times. I never felt like it was even that big of a deal. You can do a ton with a little in that game and you get currency quick enough anyways.

I still don't understand what the deal with denim is. I've never looked at a pair of jeans and was like This looks like an amazing product worth of 500$, and i would never wash it and put it in the freezer, instead of treating it like any other piece of clothing. While i can see the idea that not all jeans are of a similar quality, i have a hard time believing that 500$ jeans will last 16 to 17x as long as a 30$ jeans.

What the hell is going on in that thumbnail?!

Holy shit, CrossCode is soo good.

Also FYI: the "game" world of CrossCode exists within their "real" world (ala HunterxHunter's Greed Island) with the Avatars being actual physical bodies being remotely controlled by the players (ala Avatar).

Lea (the main character) is one of these Avatars and I believe she is being piloted by a player but that said player has lost all memory of why she's playing the game in the first place (not 100% on this last point)

@ripelivejam: I’m similarly just giving my honest opinion of his points about the game. What you say about Dead Cells is exactly the point I was trying to make in that the exploration and difficulty is similarly a part of Hollow Knight, elements that exist in other games as well, and it’s just strange to see those similar qualities championed in one game while bemoaned in another - I.e. difficulty, runbacks, losing a lot of progress etc.

Also I don’t have it “out for the guy” or anything nearly as sinister as you make it sound. It is true I don’t enjoy Ben as a personality on the site nearly as much as the other guys but that’s about it - I think I’m entitled to that opinion, and honestly it’s not something I can actively change, it just is what it is. As a natural result of this I often have conflicting opinions, but it’s not like I wish him ill or anything of the sort.

Did @benpack just say he was surprised a game with a lot of English text in it was made in Germany? I thought i heard that correct. That seems like....a slightly ignorant statement to put it politely?

I mean i have never heard an German tourist over the age of 50 speak even a single word of English, but i feel like most younger Germans are pretty proficient in English.

i don't care for hollow knight because that genre really isn't for me. I liked ori but the setting had a lot to do with that.

I said this on the beastcast comment chain but reiterate here, it is funny playstation is releasing this classic console for people to play old games on considering their recent take on old games was "who needs them when you have new games?".

YES. Absolver got it's fair shout out from Jason. Thank you Jason.

The update is awesome.

Considering Hollow Knight is a 20 hour game from what I'm seeing, they should stop trying lol.

Ms. Splosion Man is definitely available on Steam.

@ben I don't know if you will see this but I must wish a curse upon you for linking the fighting foodons intro on Twitter last night. What a dreadful catchy song.

Dwayne Johnson is Dwayne Johnson. Look at the posters for Jumanji, Rampage. Skyscraper, Ballers, Baywatch, Moana, and San Andreas.

I’ll will still only refer to him as The Rock.

Also, damn Jan, so many errors in your report of VC4 gameplay.

@depecheload: As long as they're getting washed!

I don't know why they always think the Vita had games. Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3 were both PSP games, and 3 was Japan-only. I mean you could buy 2 digitally and play it on the Vita if you sideloaded it from a PS3, but it wasn't one of the PSP games you could download directly to the Vita.

Shooting in Valkyria Chronicles 4 is totally a dice roll and even gets random accuracy boosts/detriments, and I don't think there's any bullet drop you just line up the crosshair, and there is perma death if you let the enemy touch your corpse or go 3 turns without touching it yourself.

The legacy of TellTale is getting casual players invested in gaming. Some of my friends who aren't hardcore gamers would always want to talk to me about the TellTale games and how their story unraveled. I remember when I was with my girlfriend should would want to binge on TellTale games and make choices as a couple. It was really fun.

@darkswordsman: That's true, and you could say Telltale helped create a gaming atmosphere which made it easier for "visual novels" to become accepted by a wider audience.

At the same time, it also serves as a cautionary tale of small-studio founders becoming blinded by their own initial success and falling into the trap of "More properties! More stories! More money! More more more! Damn the employees!"

Agreed

It's baffling to me that so much of the GB staff is having trouble enjoying Hollow Knight. Like, if you're not having fun then don't play it, but this ongoing theme from the staff (west coast and east coast) of "forcing" themselves to try to like it makes me question whether we're playing the same game.

Sure, you lose your money if you ever die twice in a row without retrieving your corpse, but honestly you have to play really carelessly for that to ever happen compared to how often your corpse runs are unsuccessful in Dark Souls. Hollow Knight is like ten times more responsive than Souls games since you won't screw yourself by running out of stamina, having your guard broken, getting stuck on weird 3D geometry, being fucked by weird 3D camera controls in a corner, getting combo staggered when surrounded by multiple enemies, etc. If you're good at Mega Man/Shovel Knight, you should be great at Hollow Knight - yes, you die in 5 hits which is punishing, but also you can heal SO much, all the time.

As for Ben being discouraged by losing money when he dies, most people I've talked to have no trouble buying everything by the end of the game; you lose some money here and there, but if anything, you end up with thousands of extra Geo by the end of the game, so much so that one of the DLCs added a huge (optional) money sink to the game. When you die, your corpse ghost thing spawns near the area you died but usually a little before the hazard/enemy that killed you, and I never found it hard to get back to and retrieve the ghost.

The game is tough, but really I never got discouraged by dying or temporarily losing money. I think people's Metroidvania expectations are causing people to be more displeased with aspects of the game instead of judging it on its own merits. It has the combat difficulty of a Mega Man/Shovel Knight, but in an interconnected open world instead of linear levels. You die a bunch of times until you learn a boss in a Metroidvania or Mega Man and that's fine, but if it's Hollow Knight and the death costs you a few hundred Geo and you have to walk from the checkpoint to the boss, apparently this is insufferable.

It's weird to hear them complain about the Dark Souls thematic mechanics; in a Souls game you have no map screen at all and have to just remember how zones connect and where shortcuts and bonfires are; Hollow Knight splits the difference between Souls-no-map and Metroidvania-autofill-map by tasking you with finding a mapmaker that eventually gives you a nicely detailed map, and apparently this middle ground is a war crime to be tried at The Hague based on what most GB staffers have said about the game. It just feels like anyone who mentions the game on either GB podcast is losing their mind over the game being *slightly* more exacting than what they're used to in Metroidvania game, but from another perspective the game is dramatically less punishing and more forgiving than a Souls game. The game nails the blend of Metroidvania/platformer and Souls game so much better than most other games I've seen that have tried.

Please stop talking about hollow night if you dislike it so much it’s been a year now with this.I like your opinions but it feels like circlejerk with how much bad press of hollowknight you guys keep giving it since last year.